Tuesday 17 January 2012

5 more bodies found on Costa Concordia

ROME – Five more bodies were found on the capsized cruise ship  Costa Concordia  on Tuesday as officials released a recording of the captain making excuses to a Coast Guard official who repeatedly orders him to get back to his crippled ship.


Divers located the latest victims, all of them adults wearing life jackets, in the rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point, said Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro.
In the recording made after the ship hit rocks Friday night the official berates Capt. Francesco Schettino, who is on a lifeboat and repeatedly says he doesn't want to return to the ship even as passengers are still being evacuated.


Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco that emerged Tuesday indicates he fled before all passengers were off — and then resisted De Falco's repeated orders to return.


"You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?" De Falco shouted in the audio tape.


Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.


De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"


"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge," De Falco shouted.


Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.


The 52-year-old Schettino, described by the Italian media as a genial, tanned ship's officer, has worked for 11 years for the ship's owner and was made captain in 2006.


Schettino hails from Meta di Sorrento, in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy's ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.


A judge is to decide Tuesday if Schettino should stay jailed, as requested by prosecutors. He could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.


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