Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Concordia disaster: House arrest for Captain Schettino

GIGLIO, Italy,  - Italian coastguards pleaded angrily with the captain of a stricken super-liner to return to his ship, according to recordings released on Tuesday as divers found five more bodies in the half-submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia.


The discoveries took the known death toll to 11. One German who was listed as missing has been accounted for, Italy's civil protection department said, leaving 23 people still missing four days after the giant cruiser carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew was ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.


Captain Francesco Schettino has been allowed to leave jail but is under house arrest, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.


On Tuesday, rescuers used explosives to blast through the maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive. Inside the ship, which lies on its side, heavy floating furniture and pitch-black conditions made conditions dangerous.


A tearful firefighter told Reuters: "Virtually all the dry part has been searched. It would need a miracle to find anyone alive in the wet part." No survivors have been found since Sunday.


Meanwhile, rescuers found six more bodies in the wreck of the ship on Tuesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 11.


"The five victims are a woman and four men, who could be passengers, but we are not sure," said coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini.


He added that the dead people were between 50 and 60 years old, and were wearing life-jackets.


The bodies were found near one of the assembly points where people were told to gather in an emergency.


The authorities are also battling to avoid an environmental disaster, amid fears that the cruise ship's fuel tanks could break apart and shed thousands of tonnes of diesel into the sea.


Specialist salvage teams have been drafted in, and are due to start pumping the fuel out in the coming days.




The BBC's Peter Biles: "Footage shows the passengers dwarfed by the vastness of the ship"
The ship, carrying 4,200 passengers and crew, had its hull ripped open when it hit rocks late on Friday, just hours after leaving the port of Civitavecchia for a week-long Mediterranean cruise.


Some people were forced to swim for shore as the angle of the ship made launching lifeboats impossible.


Infrared footage taken from a helicopter showed lines of people climbing ropes down the exposed hull of the vessel to reach rescue boats on the water.


On Monday, the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List said it had been able to trace the course of the Costa Concordia through information from satellites.


The paper issued a graphic comparing Friday's sailing with an earlier sailing by the vessel, suggesting that Friday's route had deviated far from its usual course.

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