By Mark ‘Crowley’ Russell
At least six people have died and nine have been injured after a tourist submarine sank in Hurghada, Egypt. Four of the injured have reportedly been taken to hospital and are said to be in a critical condition.
All the passengers on board at the time of the sinking are reported to be Russian, which the BBC says has been confirmed by the Russian Embassy in Cairo.
The submarine has been identified under the name ‘Sindbad’, a Hurghada-based tour operator with two 44-passenger recreational submarines.
Egyptian media reports that the submarine sank ‘in front of the marina of a famous Hurghada hotel’. Although there is no information as to the precise location, Sindbad is registered at Serry Beach Resort, close to Hurghada International Airport in the southern part of the city.
The submarines were reportedly manufactured in Finland and are rated to a maximum depth of 25m, carrying tourists on sightseeing trips around the local reefs. Sindbad has been operating the submarines for at least the last two years.
The sinking is the third maritime tourism disaster to strike Egypt in 2025, after the destruction of the popular liveaboard Emperor Seven Seas, which caught fire in Port Ghalib earlier in March, and the sinking of a newly built liveaboard on its way to Hurghada from the boatyard Port Rashid in February.
The tragedy also follows almost four months to the day after the Sea Story tragedy, in which 11 people died when the Dive Pro Liveaboard-owned vessel capsized on its way to Sha’ab Sataya in the southern Red Sea in November 2024.
There have been so many incidents involving Egyptian tourist vessels over the last two years that the UK government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) issued a bulletin warning travellers to be wary of safety issues on board Egyptian boats.
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