Cruise ship survivor angry at minister's claim

A French women whose husband and daughter are missing on the sunken Sea Diamond cruise ship, angrily rejected claims by Greece’s merchant marine minister that she delayed declaring their disappearance – and may even have lied about their presence on the vessel.

“All the rumours that have been heard in Greece are ridiculous,” Anne Allain told the Athens daily Ta Nea, in an interview published today.

Allain’s husband Jean-Christophe, 45, and 16-year-old daughter Maud are believed to have drowned in a lower deck cabin after the Greek cruise ship struck rocks off the holiday island of Santorini on April 5.

Nearly 1,600 other people were rescued.

On Monday, Merchant Marine Minister Yiannis Kefaloyiannis said Allain had notified authorities about her husband’s disappearance more than four hours after the accident.

He added the two missing French tourists were officially listed as having disembarked at an earlier port.

“That are questions that remain unanswered ... we checked the cruise list three times and those two passengers were missing from the list,” of people that should have been on the ship, Kefaloyiannis told private Mega Television.