RED SEA, Egypt, February 3, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An Egyptian ferry with some 1,400 people on board sunk Friday, February 3, in the Red Sea off the Saudi coast, maritime authorities said.

Search and rescue operations were underway and fourteen bodies were recovered by Egyptian rescuers amid fears of a much higher death toll, maritime sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"A helicopter has spotted lifeboats with people on board," said Red Sea port authority chief Mahfuz Taha. "The ship sank 57 miles off Hurghada."

The lifeboats were seen in waters off the Egyptian port city of Safaga, some 600 kilometers (370 miles) southeast of Cairo, security sources said.

Earlier, a security source said that bodies were spotted in the Red Sea after maritime authorities said they lost contact with the ferry.

Transport Minister Mohammed Mansur told Egyptian public television that 104 crew members were on board. He added that coordination with Saudi rescuers was under way.

Red Sea Governor Bakr Al-Rashidi announced that an operations' room had been set up in Safaga and a state of emergency was declared in the area's hospitals.

Maritime sources said at least 1,310 Egyptians were on board, as well as around 100 people from other countries, including Sudanese and Saudi nationals.

Among the passengers were Muslim pilgrims returning from Makkah after performing hajj, they said.

Al-Salam 98 sank while carrying 1,400 on board. (Reuters).

Coastal stations last had contact with the Al-Salam 98 Ferry at about 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) Thursday and did not receive any SOS message from the crew, official Adel Shukri was quoted by Reuters as saying.

"Search and rescue planes and boats are out looking for it and we're trying to get in touch with it," added Shukri, the head of administration at El-Salam Maritime Transport.

He said he did not know what might have happened, but the weather on the Saudi side had been very poor, with high winds and rain.

"All possibilities exist," he added.

The Egyptian cruise ship had departed from the Saudi port of Duba and was due to reach Safaga at 2:30 a.m. local time (00:30 GMT).

However, officials lost radar contact with the ship, and air and maritime rescue teams were mobilized.

A Saudi border control official in Jeddah said: "We don't know yet what happened -- if it sank, or overturned, or what."

According to the company's Web site, the Al-Salam 98 can carry about 1,400 passengers.

Shipping expert Paul Beaver told the BBC News Online that overloading would not have been a problem as the vessel had a capacity of 1,400.

There was a possibility one or more of the vehicles the ship was transporting could have moved, particularly in bad weather, he added.

Mamdouh Ismail, the company's owner, said the ship is more than 25 years old and registered in Panama, according to the Associated Press (AP). He declined to elaborate.

A sister ship, the Al-Salam 95, sank in the Red Sea in October after a collision with a Cypriot commercial vessel, but almost all of the passengers were rescued.

Close to 500 people had perished when another Salam Express ferry boat sunk in the Red Sea in 1991. A probe had said the accident was caused by a navigation error on the part of the captain.