Italy cruise ship rescuers find 13th body By the CNN Wire Staff

The body of a 12th victim of the Costa Concordia disaster — a woman wearing a lifejacket — was found on the wreck of the cruise ship on Saturday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The body of a woman is found, still wearing a life jacket, authorities say
• Search-and-rescue teams resume work after stopping overnight for safety
• Authorities are preparing to remove 2,400 tons of fuel from the ship
• The Costa Concordia hit rocks on January 13 with about 4,200 people aboard

Giglio, Italy (CNN) — Italian search-and-rescue teams have found another body aboard the partly sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia, civil protection office spokeswoman Francesca Maffini said Sunday.

The woman is the 13th confirmed victim of the wreck on January 13.

Divers are working to recover the body, which was found underwater on bridge number 7, Maffini said. The victim was wearing a life jacket, she said.

The discovery leaves about 19 people still missing since the ship hit rocks in the shallow waters off the coast of Tuscany, according to CNN count.

A 12th body was found within the ship Saturday afternoon, according to Italian authorities.

The body of a woman wearing a life jacket was discovered in an area of the ship that was under water, Maffini said.

A committee comprising the parties involved in the rescue told a briefing for reporters and residents on the island that search and rescue efforts will continue — but that the environmental risk is also becoming urgent.

Cruise rescue operation resumes

Photos: Cruise ship runs aground off Italy

Costa Concordia tragedy: A look back

‘Many heroes’ on ship says passenger

Officials said they cannot predict how long it will take to clear the wreckage, since that depends on maritime conditions and technical difficulties, but all legal, environmental and human factors will be taken into account.

“It’s time for Italy to show it can do something right and do it well,” Gabrielli said.

Gabrielli, who leads Italy’s civil protection agency, warned that the task ahead was complicated and daunting, not least because it takes about 45 minutes to search each cabin, using special cameras and divers.

The giant Costa Concordia had 1,500 cabins on board.

Gabrielli said no fuel oil had yet leaked from the ship — only kitchen and engine oil — and that he did not see an immediate risk of the 2,400 tons on board escaping.

A plan to remove the fuel oil has been approved, he said, and will begin once experts give the go-ahead.

Booms have been put in place around the ship to stop the spread of oil and other pollutants such as detergents and sewage chemicals. With 4,000 people aboard, the ship was the size of a small town, Gabrielli said.

Fuel will be replaced with water as it is removed from the ship’s tanks to keep the ship balanced, said Adm. Ilarione Dell’Anna, head of coastal authorities for the port city of Livorno.

Gabrielli said Costa Cruises, the company that owns the cruise ship is cooperative and was proving responsible, despite past errors.

Both Costa Cruises and authorities have criticized Capt. Francesco Schettino, who is under house arrest and faces possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.

An audio recording obtained by Italy’s Repubblica newspaper and published Saturday shows that the captain, at least at the outset of the incident, assured authorities he would do the right thing.

According to the recording, an Italian Coast Guard official asks Schettino how many people needed to be evacuated to the top of the ship to be rescued on life boats.

Cruise survivors: ‘It was pitch black’

Coast guard looks at wrecked Concordia

Woman defends cruise ship captain

“About two of three hundred people still,” the captain says.

The Coast Guard asks — will everyone evacuate, or will someone stay behind?

“I will stay here,” Schettino answers, saying that he believed that the boat was done leaning over.

Other audio recordings previously released, however, indicate that Schettino did not stay on board, but left the ship, to the anger of authorities.

The office of prosecutor Francesco Verusio said it would lodge an appeal against the investigating judge’s decision to grant the captain house arrest.

Verusio has said he that the captain should be in jail given the flight risk, and the gravity of his crimes.

Schettino’s lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, spoke to Italian news channel Sky Tg24 on Friday, urging people to reserve judgment on the captain until they have all the facts.

Schettino’s leadership has been repeatedly questioned. Earlier this week, a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station that the captain ordered dinner for himself and a woman at about 10:30 p.m. — less than an hour after the collision.

However, a Moldovan woman, Domnica Cemortan, 25, who also works for the cruise line but said she was on the Concordia as a passenger, defended the captain in a TV interview.

“I’ve heard in Russian media that the captain left the ship first, or among the first. But this is not true,” she said.

Prosecutors have accused the captain of piloting the ship too fast to allow him to react to dangers, causing the shipwreck, according to legal papers.

There were roughly 4,200 people on the Costa Concordia when it ran aground — about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members. The vast majority fled the ship safely.

Costa Concordia: Search resumes for ship survivors

The BBC’s Bethany Bell on reports that a woman was on the bridge with the captain when the accident happened

Rescue efforts have resumed aboard the wrecked Italian cruise ship, Costa Concordia, off the coast of Tuscany.

Operations were suspended on Wednesday as the vessel shifted its position. More than 20 people are still missing.

Salvage operators are standing by to start pumping fuel from the ship’s tanks to avoid a potential environmental disaster.

The vessel ran aground on Friday with some 4,200 people on board. At least 11 people were killed.

Divers

Rescue workers have now almost completed their investigation of the fourth level of the ship, reports the BBC’s Bethany Bell at the scene.

Earlier, coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini said the ship had now stabilised.

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List of dead and missing

• Confirmed dead: Sandor Feher, Hungary, crew; French nationals Pierre Gregoire, Jeanne Gannard, Jean-Pierre Micheaud, Francis Servil, passengers; Italian Giovanni Masia, passenger; Spaniard Guillermo Gual, passenger; Peruvian Thomas Alberto Costilla Mendoza, crew.
• Missing: 21 people plus three unidentified bodies. Nationalities as follows: 12 Germans, six Italians (including one crew member), two French, two Americans, one Peruvian (crew), one Indian (crew)

• Official missing list
• Relatives seek the missing

“The tests during the night were positive and we have divers going down now,” Mr Marini told reporters, AFP news agency says.

“We will then use the micro-explosives to open more holes. They will enter inside the ship and search for more people.”

A specialist team from a Dutch salvage company is preparing to pump more than 2,300 tonnes of fuel from the ship’s 17 tanks.

Mike Lacey, of the International Salvage Union, says the operation could take some time.

“[The fuel] is spread around 17 tanks. The quantities in each tank will obviously be different, and the people there involved in the operation of removing the oil are experts at this sort of thing – and they know exactly what to do,” he told the BBC.

“They’ll be drilling into each tank, and pumping the oil out and putting it into a barge or a coastal tanker or even a tug.

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Costa Concordia crew member tells coastguard “we have a blackout”

“These things are all very weather-dependent. If the weather turns against them, then they won’t be able to work. So I understand they expect to take a week to two weeks to get all the fuel off.”

‘Let down’

The ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, has admitted to making a navigational error, Italian media reported.

He told investigators he had “ordered the turn too late” as the luxury ship sailed close to an island, according to a leaked interrogation transcript.

Supporters of Capt Schettino have emerged in his hometown – “Don’t give up”, reads the banner

Capt Schettino is under house arrest on suspicion of multiple manslaughter. Prosecutors have also accused him of fleeing the ship before evacuation was complete.

Media reports say the company that owns the ship, Costa Cruises, has suspended Capt Schettino and withdrawn an offer to pay his legal costs.

Italian media have also shown pictures of a Moldovan woman who says she was on the bridge after the ship ran aground, and defended the captain’s actions in an interview with Moldovan TV.

The reports say investigators are trying to speak to her.

Meanwhile some 300 Philippine crew members of the Costa Concordia have arrived back in Manila.

They looked visibly shaken by their ordeal, says the BBC’s Kate McGeown in the capital.

Some crew members said they did their job well, making sure their passengers were safe, but found the captain and officers had already left the ship by the time the “abandon ship” message was given. They said they felt angry and let down.

“It’s… horrible because it is supposed to be the captain to [be] the last one to stay on the ship if there is a collision like this and not the passengers and the crew members,” Andrew Bacud, a steward on the ship, told the BBC.

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Search suspended as ship shifts

Removing the Costa Concordia will be a huge task that is likely to take months

The search of the Costa Concordia cruise ship has been suspended after the capsized vessel slipped, the Italian coast guard says.

Officials are hoping to begin salvage work soon, including pumping oil off the wreck, with hopes fading of finding any more survivors.

Twenty-four people are missing, and 11 confirmed dead, after the huge ship crashed into rocks on Friday.

There are fears the vessel might slip into deeper water off the Tuscan coast.

“Instruments indicated the ship had moved, we are in the process of evaluating if it has found a new resting point to allow us to resume. For the moment we cannot even go near it,” fire department spokesman Luca Cari said.

Along with the salvage workers – who will begin operations once rescue efforts have been declared over – a specialist team from Dutch salvage company SMIT is to start drilling through the ship towards the 17 tanks that hold more than 2,000 tonnes of fuel.

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“Start Quote

Go aboard. It’s an order. You have no evaluation to make. You declared abandon ship, now I give orders. Go aboard. Is it clear?”

Gregorio de Falco Livorno Port Authority

• Transcript: Coastguard call

The firm says this could take several weeks.

Experts believe there is little risk of a major fuel leak that would contaminate the scenic area.

‘It’s too dark’

The captain of the Italian ship, Francesco Schettino is under house arrest, accused of causing the crash. Prosecutors have also accused him of fleeing the Costa Concordia while passengers were still stranded.

A recording of a call between him and a port official after the crash appears to support this, though Capt Schettino denies the claims.

In the recording, released by the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Livorno Port Authority chief Gregorio de Falco can be heard repeatedly telling the captain to get back on board the ship to help the stranded passengers.

“Schettino, maybe you saved yourself from the sea, but I’ll make you have trouble for sure. Go aboard,” says Mr De Falco.

The captain appears to refuse, replying first that there are rescuers already on board, and then that it is dark and difficult to see.

Mr De Falco replies: “Do you want to go home, Schettino? It’s dark, so you want to go home?”

Coastguards believe he never went back to the ship. He was arrested shortly afterwards.

But during a court hearing on Tuesday, the captain said he could not get on board the vessel because it was lying on its side.

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A phone conversation of Capt Francesco Schettino being ordered to get back on board to co-ordinate the evacuation has been released

He argued that after hitting rocks he had executed a difficult manoeuvre that had saved many people’s lives.

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.

‘Near miss’

Meanwhile, satellite tracking information given to the BBC by the shipping journal, Lloyd’s List Intelligence, shows that the Costa Concordia sailed closer to Giglio island on a cruise last August than it did on its disastrous voyage on Friday.

Lloyd’s List told the BBC that the vessel passed within 230m of the island on 14 August 2011 to mark La Notte di San Lorenzo – the night of the shooting stars festival on the island.

The route deviation on that occasion had apparently been authorised by Costa Cruises – the company which owns the vessel.

Lloyd’s List has published data suggesting a near miss occurred in a very similar location in August

The company said on Monday that the ship was never closer than 500m to the coast when it passed on 14 August.

Lloyd’s List describes that occasion as a “near miss” and says the ship’s route would have been less than 200m away from the point of collision on Friday’s voyage.

Costa Cruises said on Monday that the route deviation last Friday had been “unauthorised, unapproved and unknown to Costa”.

But Richard Meade, the Editor of Lloyd’s List, said: “The company’s account of what happened, of the rogue master [Capt Schettino] taking a bad decision, isn’t quite as black and white as they presented originally.”

“This ship took a very similar route only a few months previously and the master would have known that.”

Costa Cruises says it is looking into the claims, but stands by the statement it gave on Monday.

Nautical charts

Meanwhile, Lloyd’s List says the issue of which nautical charts the captain of the vessel was using looks likely to be critical to his defence if he does face a criminal prosecution.

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) has issued a statement declining to comment on whether its charts were being used. No rocks are shown on the UKHO’s chart at the position where the Costa Concordia sank.

The UKHO points out that its charts are only at the 1:300,000 scale and that Italian charts are available on a much larger scale.

“It should be noted that this small scale chart is considered to be unsuitable for close inshore navigation,” the UKHO told Lloyds.

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Fears grow for Concordia missing

Controlled explosions are being carried out by divers

Rescue crews have blasted holes in a stricken cruise ship in order to gain easier access as hopes fade of finding survivors among the 29 people missing.

Six people are known to have died after the Costa Concordia crashed into rocks off Italy’s west coast on Friday night.

The ship’s owners have blamed the captain for Friday’s crash, saying he changed course towards an island.

Capt Francesco Schettino has been detained on suspicion of manslaughter and is due to appear shortly in court.

Capt Schettino, 52, has also been accused of abandoning his vessel before all the passengers had been evacuated.

He is to answer questions from a magistrate who will decide if he is to remain in custody.

Italy says it will declare a state of emergency over the incident, and provide funding to help avert any environmental disaster.

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“Start Quote

I haven’t received any precise information about her – it seems the situation has become worse for my daughter”

Saturnino Soria Father of missing waitress Erika Soria

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The Italian environment minister said liquid was leaking from the ship, but it was unclear if it was fuel.

Meanwhile, Italian officials have denied a newspaper report that a seventh body had been found overnight on the vessel.

Captain ‘in difficult position’

Shortly after daybreak on Tuesday rescue crews blasted several holes in the ship, now lying on its side metres from Giglio island, off the Tuscan coast, in order to gain access to areas they have not been able to search.

Italian coastguard officials said the number of people believed to be missing had jumped to 29 from the previous estimate of 16, but gave no reason for the change.

The missing are thought to include four crew members, as well as passengers from the US, Germany, France and Italy.

On Monday, the Costa Concordia’s owners, Costa Cruises, said Capt Schettino hit the rocks because he deliberately steered the ship towards Giglio Island.

Prosecutors also claim that he was responsible for the disaster. They say the captain wanted to make a close pass of Giglio in order to “salute” a crew member’s family who live there.

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BBC’s Peter Biles: “Footage shows the passengers dwarfed by the vastness of the ship as the rescue operation was carried out”

“The captain is in a very difficult position because we are sure enough that he abandoned the ship when many passengers were still waiting to be evacuated,” said prosecutor Francesco Verusio.

A transcript purportedly of conversations between the captain and the coastguard has emerged in the Italian media – apparently drawn from one of the ship’s black box recorders – which appears to corroborate the claims that the captain left the ship before all the passengers escaped.

Capt Schettino has denied wrongdoing and says the rocks were not on his charts. He has insisted that he and his crew were the last people to leave the vessel.

His lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, said his client was “overcome and wants to express his greatest condolences to the victims”, adding that the captain had carried out a dangerous manoeuvre that had actually saved lives.

Conditions ‘disastrous’

The ship, carrying 4,200 passengers and crew, had its hull ripped through when it hit rocks late on Friday.

Continue reading the main story

• Costa Concordia: A world on its side Watch
• Aerial video shows gash in hull Watch
• Captain: Rocks not detected Watch
• Lifeboat panic caught on film Watch
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• Crew member airlifted to safety Watch
• Cruise ship dancer: ‘Absolute panic’ Watch

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

Italian officials said 10 German passengers were among the missing, along with two Americans, six Italians, two French couples and a Peruvian.

Teams of specialist divers have been helping with the rescue mission, but they have been hampered by bad weather, which has been moving the ship in the water.

Rodolfo Raiteri, head of the coast guard’s diving team, was quoted by news agency AFP as saying that conditions inside the vessel were “disastrous”.

“It’s very difficult. The corridors are cluttered and it’s hard for the divers to swim through,” he said.

The ship is lying at a steep angle, hampering the search operation

Saturnino Soria, father of Peruvian Erika Soria, who was working as a waitress on the ship, insisted that the search operation should continue.

“I haven’t received any precise information about her – nothing from yesterday or today – it seems the situation has become worse for my daughter,” he said.

But the local mayor voiced hope of finding more people alive.

“You never know in the labyrinth of that ship. An air pocket could have allowed people to survive a few days,” Sergio Ortelli was quoted by AFP as saying.

Emergency funds

Meanwhile, the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List said it had been able to trace the course of the Concordia though information from satellites.

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

Worries are growing that the ship could cause an environmental disaster if it breaks up and sheds its fuel.

The vessel had just left the port of Civitavecchia, north of Rome, carrying roughly 2,300 tonnes of fuel for a week-long Mediterranean cruise when it crashed.

The area where the ship capsized is a maritime park famous for its pristine waters, varied marine life and coral.

Italian Environment Minister Corrado Clini said there was evidence that liquid was leaking from the ship, but he could not confirm whether the fluid was fuel.

He said the government would declare a state of emergency to release extra funding to help avoid a fuel spill causing an environmental disaster.

A man involved in the operation to remove fuel from the Costa Concordia told the BBC’s Matthew Price that the ship was stable, and that some movement was normal.

He said there was no sign of fuel leaking and that they hoped to begin pumping oil from the ship by Thursday or Friday.

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Cruise captain ‘committed errors’, say ship’s owners

Alan Johnston reports from the island of Giglio on the continuing rescue operation

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The company operating a cruise ship that capsized after hitting rocks off western Italy on Friday says the captain may have “committed errors”.

He appears to have sailed too close to land and not to have followed the company’s emergency procedures, Costa Crociere said in a statement.

Capt Francesco Schettino is suspected of manslaughter, but denies wrongdoing.

At least six people have died but about 15 remain unaccounted for. Divers are trying to find more survivors.

“It seems that the commander made errors of judgement that had serious consequences,” Costa Crociere said.

“The route followed by the ship turned out to be too close to the coast, and it seems that his decision in handling the emergency didn’t follow Costa Crociere’s procedures which are in line, and in some cases, go beyond, international standards,” the statement added.

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Capt Francesco Schettino: “We were last to leave the ship”

The Costa Concordia is lying on its side just metres off the Tuscan island of Giglio.

Capt Schettino has been detained on suspicion of manslaughter. The chief prosecutor said the vessel had “very ineptly got close to Giglio”.

But Capt Schettino denied any wrongdoing, saying the rocks it hit were not marked on his nautical chart.

“We should have had deep water beneath us,” he told Italian TV. “We were about 300 metres (1,000ft) from the rocks more or less. We shouldn’t have hit anything.”

He also denied claims by prosecutors that he left the Costa Concordia before evacuation was complete. “We were the last to leave the ship,” Capt Schettino said.

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“Start Quote

A helicopter flies overhead, hovers a moment, and two more rescuers are winched down on to what used to be the side of the ship. It is now its gently sloping upper deck”

Matthew Price BBC News, Giglio island

• Underwater search for survivors

There have been suggestions in Italian media that he may have steered his vessel close to Giglio in order to put on a show for residents of the island.

The 52-year-old captain has worked for Costa Crociere for 11 years. The company said he joined the company in 2002 as an official in charge of security.

He was made captain in 2006, having been the ship’s second-in-command.

Like all captains in the fleet he took part in a continuous programme of training and passed all the required checks, Costa Crociere said.

First officer Ciro Ambrosio has also been detained.

Carnival, which owns Costa Crociere, said it expected to lose $95m (£62m; 75m euro) this year for “loss of use” of the ship.

Rising toll

Rescue crews found the body of a male in a corridor of the vessel early on Monday. Officials said he was probably a passenger, based on the type of life jacket he was wearing.

On Sunday, emergency teams recovered the bodies of two elderly men trapped in a flooded section of the partially submerged Costa Concordia.

Poor weather is hampering the search for survivors

The bodies are being taken to the mainland for identification.

The ship, carrying more than 4,200 people, was on the first night of a Mediterranean cruise when it ran aground in calm conditions.

Poor weather is hampering the search as teams scour the hundreds of submerged cabins and other rooms.

“We are going to all the ship’s cabins looking for any signs of life, or people shouting or any noises,” said Italian interior ministry spokesman, Francesco Paulo Tronca.

“It’s a very difficult operation. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of cabins on many different decks.”

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“Start Quote

There was panic, like in a film, dishes crashing to the floor, people running, people falling down the stairs”

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Three survivors were found on Sunday. Teams working above the waterline rescued an Italian man – a senior member of the ship’s crew – who had suffered a severe leg injury.

He was placed on a stretcher and winched up to a rescue helicopter.

Earlier, a Korean couple who were on their honeymoon were discovered trapped in a cabin. They were brought ashore, dazed but unhurt.

Swimming to safety

On Saturday, officials said two French passengers and a Peruvian crew member had died and another 30 people had been injured.

Italian, German, French and British nationals were among the 3,200 passengers on board. There were also 1,000 crew.

On Sunday morning, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told Sky News all the Britons – 23 passengers and 12 crew – were now safe and accounted for.

The president of Costa Crociere, Gianni Onorato, said the company would “be working in full transparency with Italian authorities” to understand the causes of the disaster.

Mr Onorato said normal lifeboat evacuation had become “almost impossible” because the ship had listed so quickly. Some passengers had to swim to Giglio.

The survivors have been taken by ferry from Giglio to Porta San Stefano, about 25km (15 miles) away on the mainland.

Some described scenes of chaos, and said the crew had not carried out an evacuation drill by the time disaster struck.