At about 01:20, a quiet female voice called ""Häire, häire, laeval on häire"", Estonian for "Alarm, alarm, there is alarm on the ship", over the public address system, which was followed immediately by an internal alarm for the crew, then one minute later by the general lifeboat alarm. The vessel's rapid list and the flooding prevented many people in the cabins from ascending to the boat deck, as water not only flooded the vessel via the car deck, but also through windows in cabins as well as the massive windows along deck 6. The windows gave way to the powerful waves as the ship listed and the sea reached the upper decks. Survivors reported that water flowed down from ceiling panels, stairwells and along corridors from decks that were not yet under water. This contributed to the rapid sinking. A mayday was communicated by the ship's crew at 01:22, but did not follow international formats. "Estonia" directed a call to "Silja Europa" and only after making contact with her did the radio operator utter the word "Mayday". The radio operator on "Silja Europa", chief mate Teijo Seppelin, replied in English: "Estonia, are you calling mayday?" After that, the voice of third mate Andres Tammes took over on "Estonia" and the conversation shifted to Finnish. Tammes was able to provide some details about their situation but, due to a loss of power, he could not give their position, which delayed rescue operations somewhat. Some minutes later, power returned (or somebody on the bridge managed to lower himself to the starboard side of the bridge to check the marine GPS, which will display the ship's position even in blackout conditions), and the "Estonia" was able to radio its position to "Silja Europa" and "Mariella". The ship disappeared from the radar screens of other ships at around 01:50, and sank at in international waters, about on bearing 157° from Utö island, Finland, to the depth of of water. According to survivor accounts, the ship sank stern first after taking a list of 90 degrees.