Italian rescuers today found five more bodies inside the wreckage of the Costa Concordia, bringing the death toll from Friday’s disaster to 11.
After slamming into a rocky reef just off the Tuscan island of Giglio, nearly all of the 4,200 passengers and crew evacuated as the cruise ship rapidly took on water and began to list.
At least six people died in the chaotic moments after the ship ran aground, while dozens more were injured.
Prior to today’s discovery of four men and one woman, all wearing life jackets, the coast guard had raised the number of missing from 16 to 29, including 25 passengers and four crew. Italian officials gave the breakdown as 14 Germans, six Italians, four French, one Hungarian, one Indian, one Peruvian and two Americans — a couple from Minnesota.
But there was still confusion over the numbers, and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin listed 12 Germans as confirmed missing.
Among those scouring the half of the ship underwater were six cave specialists, known as speleologists, who are trained to maneuver in confined spaces. Searching the maze-like corridors of the 17-deck, 1,500-cabin luxury liner, however, presents unique challenges.
“There are lots of things moving around down there — furniture, beds, cupboards. It is very dangerous and we have to be very careful,” Giuseppe Minciotti, the director of the Italian school for cave divers, told Reuters.
By midday, the slow and methodical search had to be suspended after the boat began to sway in the choppy Mediterranean waters.
“The divers are inside and they’re in very grave danger because if the ship were to shift while they were inside, it would be exceedingly dangerous,” Environment Minister Corrado Clini told Reuters.
New details also emerged yesterday about the conduct of the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, who witnesses say abandoned the vessel while hundreds of passengers remained trapped. A conversation recorded on the Costa Concordia’s so-called black boxes captured an exchange between an evasive Schettino and an irate port official.
After having evacuated the ship with other crew members, Schettino is heard telling the official that he “cannot get on board because the rear of the ship is keeling over,” according to a transcript provided by the ANSA news service.
The official then directs Schettino to climb back aboard the boat using an emergency ladder at the bow, and report back with the exact number of men, women and children still aboard.
“What are you doing?” the official tells Schettino, who was arrested and charged with multiple counts of manslaughter on Saturday. “Are you abandoning the rescue? Captain, this is an order. I am the one in charge now. You have declared abandoning ship.”
Italian officials readied floating booms in anticipation of a possible oil spill that could threaten wildlife in the protected Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals, where the boat came to rest. With the ship in danger of coming unmoored in the rough waters, there is fear its hull could suffer further punctures on the rocks, releasing hundreds of tons of fuel.
“We have to hurry because if the weather changes, the situation could get worse. We must protect our natural heritage and landscape.” Clini told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
The financial impact that the incident will have on the cruising industry is difficult to calculate. Carnival Cruises, the parent company that owns the Costa Concordia, said yesterday that it estimated it would lose upwards of $100 million in earnings this year alone.
For now, however, the immediate concern remained trying to find survivors, a diminishing prospect.
“You never know in the labyrinth of that ship. An air pocket could have allowed people to survive a few days,” Sergio Ortelli, the mayor of Giglio, told the Agence France-Presse.
David.Knowles@thedaily.com
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