High school students rescued from a Greek cruise ship returned home Sunday, four days after the boat they were on sank to the bottom of the Aegean Sea.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport was the scene of dozens of tearful reunions as 38 students from Montreal's Lester B. Pearson High School were reunited with friends and family.

"I love my teachers, our bond has become even stronger," said student Sabrina Giancioppi after she arrived at the airport. "It's hard to be back to see my family, it's a little emotional, but I love everyone even more."

Sabrina's mother, Maria Giancioppi, said waiting to see her daughter over the last few days has been difficult.

"I didn't sleep," she said. "I kept thinking about the time she was supposed to be sleeping, the time she was supposed to leave [to come home]."

Another group of 21 Canadian students who escaped the sinking ship also returned home to Edmonton International Airport early Sunday morning.

The students and their five chaperones, who were from a high school in Tofield, Alta., recalled terrifying experiences in the moments after the Sea Diamond hit a reef.

"A door came flying off and it was coming for me," said Grade 10 student Kristen Strilchuk.

Toilet paper and other debris went rolling by as she climbed the stairs to the upper deck, Strilchuk said. When she reached an upper floor, she found patrons calmly eating a meal as if nothing was wrong.

"Nobody believed us," she said.

The 142-metre Sea Diamond was about 400 metres off the coast of Greece's Santorini Island when it hit rocks on Thursday.

The evacuation took close to three hours.

Strilchuk, 16, said she and her friends had no life-jackets. When she saw a man clutching one, she pleaded with him to hand it over.

Captain charged

She said she made a fist and punched him in the face when he wouldn't.

"He was holding it and he was 40 years old and we were kids," she explained, adding that she pulled the life-jacket from him and gave it to a friend.

Strilchuk said she later punched another man and took his life-jacket for herself.

The ship's captain was charged Saturday with causing a shipwreck through negligence.

The charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.

Two French passengers — a 45-year-old man and his 16-year-old daughter — remain missing.