An Egyptian cruiser with 1,414 people aboard sank in the Red Sea and rescuers have found at least 16 bodies and 12 survivors on Friday, Egyptian officials said.

"We've found 16 bodies and 12 survivors," an official of the Red Sea port authority said.

The ship, Al Salaam 98, with 1,310 passengers and 104 crew members, 22 cars, 16 trucks aboard, disappeared from the radar screen shortly after it left the Saudi port of Dubah at 7:30 p.m. local time (1630 GMT) on Thursday.

The ship should have arrived at its destination of Safaga, an Egyptian Red Sea port some 600 km southeast of the capital Cairo, at 2:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Friday.

A list of passengers obtained by Xinhua showed that 1,193 Egyptians, 99 Saudis, six Syrians and four Palestinians were on board the 35-year old cruiser.

Other passengers were from Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Sudan, Jordan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Canada.

Both the list and an official from the Chinese Embassy in Cairo confirmed that there were no Chinese citizens on board when the ship capsized.

Egyptian maritime officials in the Suez port said earlier that bodies and lifeboats were spotted on Friday by an Egyptian helicopter near the waters off Safaga, where the ship was last seen on the radar screen.

Officials said bad weather, high winds and rough seas were apparently hampering rescue efforts.

Egyptian Minister of Transport Mohamed Mansour told CNN that four Egyptian frigates have sailed to rescue the survivors.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the accident, but it was speculated that the cruiser might have run aground in poor weather.

An Egyptian official indicated that the possibility of a collision had been ruled out.

"The area is fully covered by radar systems and we haven't picked up communications about a collision," said the official.

The ship is owned by the Egyptian company El-Salaam Maritime Transport Co. and most passengers on board are believed to be Egyptian pilgrims returning from the Saudi holy city of Mecca.

It is the second time a cruiser owned by the company suffered a major accident in less than four months.

Al-Salaam 95, sister ship of "Salaam 98", carrying about 1,250 Muslim pilgrims back from Saudi Arabia, collided with a Cypriot commercial vessel in the Gulf of Suez on Oct. 17, 2005, killing at least three and injuring dozens of others.

Source: Xinhua