NEWS REPORTS are extracted from various sources -
Malaysian, Singapore, UK, Australian Newspapers, BBC, CNN and Reuters to name but a few .....

Some survivors sang theme from 'Titanic'

Some rescuers said the site looked like a scene from the film "Titanic", with the liner on fire, smoke belching out, and passengers frantically climbing into life boats.
"It was a true nightmare, I thought we all were going to die," Indian businessman Ram Yalamanchi, 32, told the Australian Associated Press from his hotel room in Penang. Yalamanchi said he would never forget the screams of his fellow passengers. "We were on one of the last lifeboats, we watched her just slip under the water," he said. "People were screaming, praying, it was awful, the most terrifying experience of my life."
Metro Holdings Ltd, which owns just under 70 percent of cruise ship operator Sun Cruises, said on Friday it was starting investigations into the sinking of the Sun Vista luxury liner. Registered in the Bahamas, the Sun Vista sank about 60 nautical miles south of Penang Island and 50 nautical miles west of Port Weld in the Strait of Malacca dividing peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra -- one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The liner, on a six-day cruise from Singapore to the Malaysian ports of Malacca and Penang, then the Thai resort island of Phuket and back, developed a power failure at approximately 3:15 p.m. (0715 GMT) on Thursday. A spokesman of the Kampung Acheh Marine Police in Lumut said the incident occurred in international waters. "When our boat arrived at the scene at 12:15 a.m., the cruise liner was still on fire," said the spokesman. "Some said that it looked like a scene from the film `Titanic."' A total of 1,104 passengers and crew members of 26 nationalities were picked up. All arrived safely on Penang island in northwestern Malaysia, according a statement from Sun Cruises, operators of the ship. The Marine Rescue and Coordination Center in Port Klang said officials believed all passengers and crew were rescued.
The first distress signal went out at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Marine police said the ship sank about seven hours later, at 1:20 a.m., in the Strait of Malacca, about 27 miles off the central state of Perak. The passengers were moved onto 18 lifeboats and four lift rafts.
Sun Cruises said all passengers would be accommodated at hotels until they could be flown home. They would be given full refunds "for the inconvenience." Rescued passengers included Australians, Americans, Britons and Japanese. Some in Penang spoke of panic and chaos.
A number of Australians faced the trauma by singing the theme song from the movie, "Titanic," according to Australian passenger Greg Haywood, 30. "We were singing the Celine Dion song, `My Heart Will Go On,' trying to keep everyone's spirits up," said Haywood, adding that people mostly remained calm. "A few people were crying and panicking, but everyone behaved themselves." "What actually happened is lack of information because the captain did not tell us about the fire. All the crew members looked panicky," passenger Thomas Bonnard, 62, of England, told the Malaysian news agency Bernama.