Preliminary investigation on Saturday blamed fire for the sinking of an Egyptian ferry in the Red Sea and rescue work continued as about 800 out of over 1,400 passengers and crew were still missing.

The Red Sea Ports Authority said that the number of survivors of the sunken Egyptian ferry has risen to 389 and that a total of 185 bodies have been recovered so far.

"Fire erupting in the engine machinery and the garage was the primary cause of the accident," survivors were quoted by the official MENA news agency as saying.

Fire broke out two hours after the ship left the Dubah Port in Saudi Arabia en route to the Egyptian Red Sea port of Safaga, some 600 km southeast of the capital Cairo, said the survivors who were being treated in Hurghada General Hospital.

After three hours into the trip, the captain asked the passengers to leave their private cabins and go up onto the deck before the ship listed and went down, they added.

Several survivors also complained that they could not use lifeboats available on the ship.

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak flew to the Red Sea city of Hurghada on Saturday to oversee the rescue operation and visited survivors.

After being briefed on the development of the rescue work, Mubarak visited survivors at the Hurghada General Hospital, where 100 Egyptians and 12 Saudis were being treated, and the Mubarak Military Hospital which has received 44 Egyptians and one Syrian.

Mubarak has also ordered urgent aid to the survivors and families of the missing passengers, according to his spokesman Soliman Awwad.

Families of the missing will receive some 30,000 Egyptian pounds each (about US$5,245) and each survivor will receive 15,000 pounds (about US$2,622), Awwad added.

Hundreds of relatives of passengers pushed and shoved the riot police deployed in front of the Safaga Port Authority, occasionally breaking through, as frustration built up over the lack of information about those still missing.

The rescue operation led by Egypt's naval force continued on the second day of the disaster with the help from the United States, Saudi Arab and Jordan.

Egyptian officials initially turned down a British offer to divert a warship to the scene and a US offer to send a P3 Orion maritime naval patrol aircraft to the area.

But Egypt later reversed the decision and allowed the Orion which is able to search underwater from the air to reach the accidental scene.

Saudi Arabia said that two frigates, a supply ship, four rescue boats and helicopters will be sent from the country to take part in the rescue operation.

Several Jordanian naval units have also joined the rescue efforts, Xinhua learned.

The ferry named Al-Salaam 98 carried 1,310 passengers, 104 crew members, 22 cars and 16 trucks.

The ship disappeared from the radar screen shortly after it left the Saudi port of Dubah at 7:30 PM local time (16:30 GMT) on Thursday.

It should have arrived at its destination of Safaga at 2:30 AM (00:30 GMT) on Friday.

The 35-year old ship is owned by the Egyptian company El-Salaam Maritime Transport Co. and it is the second time that a cruiser owned by the company suffered a major accident in less than four months.

Al-Salaam 95, a sister ship, 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.

(Xinhua News Agency February 5, 2006)