Israeli girl killed in Thailand boat fire identified
12-year-old girl who perished on ferry off coast of Thailand named as Shani Maril; family was apparently on trip to celebrate her bat mitzvah; initial reports that she had been rescued by another boat turned out to be untrue.
The Foreign Ministry identified Thursday the 12-year-old Israeli girl killed during a boat fire in Thailand on Wednesday as Shani Maril from the city of Modi'in.
The Foreign Ministry said that the identification process of the young girl's body is still underway and therefore did not confirm the identification of the body.
The Israeli Consul of the embassy inThailand, Orit Shani, is monitoring the identification process and its transfer back to Israel.
Thai officials say they have found the body of a 12-year-old Israeli girl, the only fatality from a tourist boat that caught fire in the Andaman Sea in the country's southwest.
The girl had apparently been on a family trip her parents and two siblings to celebrate her bat mitzvah.
The rest of about 110 passengers and crew were rescued Wednesday after the boat sank in flames off the coast of Krabi province.
Krabi deputy governor Narong Woonchew said the girl's body was recovered by a team of up to 50 navy, marine police and national park officers who were searching for her since the sinking. Police are investigating the cause of the fire.
The girl seemed to have been locked in a bathroom when the fire erupted near the engines of the ferry. A Chabad representative was sent to aid the family of the girl at a hospital in Krabi.
She was at first thought to have been rescued by another boat that was going to Phuket, but it was later found that she had died in the bathroom.
Police Col. Sompong Thip-apakul said the accident occurred on the Ao Nang Princess 5 ferry traveling from Krabi to Phuket, two of Thailand's most popular beach resort areas.
One of the passengers on the ferry said that the crew told him, his wife and their son that there was a fire and that they should all gather at the ship's bow. "The fire then grew stronger," said the passenger. "Everyone was in a panic. Some cried. We handed out the life jackets and jumped into the water."
Most of the rescued passengers and crew were taken to Krabi, several miles from where the fire occurred.
Thailand's tourism industry has suffered recently from domestic political violence and several high-profile killings and unexplained deaths of Westerners, but serious marine accidents are uncommon.
