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Couple's holiday hell as massive cruise ship blaze leaves them stranded on island
wedding anniversary took a dramatic turn that left a British couple stranded on a Caribbean island.Pam and Martin Mullan, from County Derry, boarded the luxury cruise ship Carnival Freedom at Port Canaveral in Orlando on Monday along with some 2,500 other passengers.They were looking forward to a five-day cruise. But as the 110,000 ton vessel prepared to make its first stop at Grand Turk in the Dominican Republic at around 7am on Thursday, fire broke out in one of its funnels.The couple recalled that when the alarm was first raised, they woke up briefly and then – assuming it was just a practice drill – rolled over and went back to sleep.It wasn’t until a little while later, as the sounds of panic from outside increased, that they realised that it was no drill.Martin told his local paper Derry Now that while the crew were trying to keep passengers calm, “you could see they were nervous”.He described a chaotic scene, with elderly people and children needing a lot of help and becoming upset.The crew of another ship that was also docked at Grand Turk helped put out the blaze."It is a miracle that it happened while we were coming into port,” said Martin.
