1 die in burning, sinking ferry

Rescuers battled in the dark yesterday to save more than 300 trapped passengers from a burning Italian ferry as coastguards reported the first death in the high-seas drama.

As darkness fell, teams from Greece, Italy and Albania who had coped with gale-force winds and billowing smoke earlier in the day, pressed on with efforts to retrieve more passengers.

The Italian coastguard confirmed the first death in the disaster, saying it had plucked a man's body from the water around the ferry.

The unnamed victim, a Greek national, was being transferred to the Italian port of Brindisi on a patrol boat.

Greek officials said a Greek woman who had been in the same part of the stricken "Norman Atlantic" as the deceased man had been rescued.

The blaze on the ferry was said to have started on the car deck when the vessel was some 44 nautical miles northwest of the Greek island of Corfu.

In an update at 1630 GMT, the Italian navy said 317 of the 478 passengers and crew were still aboard the ferry.

Desperate passengers pleaded by mobile phone live on TV to be saved from the vessel which was travelling from the Greek port of Patras to Ancona in Italy.

"I cannot breathe, we are all going to burn like rats -- God save us," cried one of the ship's cooks in a call to his wife, she told journalists.

As a flotilla of rescue vessels arrived from Greece, Italy and Albania, Greek army Super Puma helicopters winched passengers two by two from the bridge to the Italian ship, Europa, which is coordinating the rescue.

A Greek journalist aboard the ship said rescuers were also trying to attach rope ladders to the ferry so passengers could climb down onto tug boats.

A Greek army helicopter made repeated attempts to save two passengers who fell from an escape chute and were at the mercy of six-metre waves. Their fate was unknown.