[guide.chat] cruise ship sinks like the titanic
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:42:45 -0000
GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) - Divers found the bodies of two elderly men inside a
capsized cruiseliner on Sunday, raising to five the death toll after the luxury
vessel foundered and dramatically keeled over off Italy's coast.
Teams were painstakingly checking the interior spaces of the partly submerged
Italian liner Costa Concordia for 15 people still unaccounted for after the
huge ship, with 4,229 passengers and crew on board, was holed by a rock Friday
night.
A day after the disaster, rescuers plucked a South Korean honeymoon couple and
an injured crewmember alive from the wreck, lying on its side close to the
beautiful island of Giglio off Italy's west coast.
The captain of the 114,500-tonne ship, Francesco Schettino, was arrested on
charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship, Italian
police said. Some 64 people were injured in the accident.
Investigators were working through evidence from the equivalent of the "black
boxes" carried on aeroplanes, to try to establish the precise sequence of
events behind the accident, which occurred in calm seas and shallow waters.
Searching the vast ship for survivors was like combing through a small town -
but one tilted on its side, largely in darkness, partly underwater and full of
floating debris.
In the early afternoon, scuba divers looking for survivors found the bodies of
two men at an evacuation assembly point in the submerged part of the ship,
coastguard officials said.
The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were found
Saturday.
The discovery of the bodies Sunday dampened earlier euphoria when a helicopter
lifted off injured chief purser Manrico Gianpetroni, hours after rescuers made
voice contact with him deep inside the stricken, multi-storey vessel.
Gianpetroni, who had a broken leg, was winched up from the ship on a stretcher
and taken to hospital.
"I never lost hope of being saved. It was a 36-hour nightmare," he told
reporters.
TITANIC
Passengers compared the disaster to the sinking of the Titanic, and described
people leaping into the sea and fighting over lifejackets in panic when the
ship hit a rock and ran aground as they sat down for dinner Friday night.
The vast hulk of the 290-metre-long ship loomed over the little port of Giglio,
a picturesque island in a maritime nature reserve off the Tuscan coast. There
was large gash in its side and divers were able to swim into the wreck through
the hole.
The specialist diving teams faced a complex task as they worked their way
through the warren of cabins on the ship - a floating resort that boasted a
huge spa, seven restaurants, bars, cinemas and discotheques.
"Getting inside the ship is really difficult and dangerous," said Majko Aldone,
a one of the specialist team of divers who have been entering cabins through
open portholes or by smashing through the glass.
"There are various obstacles, sheets, mattresses, nets which have broken free
and are spread out all over the areas we're searching," he said.
Paolo Tronca, a local fire department official, said the search would go on
"for 24 hours a day as long as we have to" and that rescue workers were using
sniffer dogs in the section of the ship above water.
As the search continued, there were demands for explanations of why the vessel
had come so close to the shore and bitter complaints about how long it took to
evacuate the terrified passengers.
State prosecutor Francesco Verusio said investigations might go beyond the
captain.
"We are investigating the possible responsibility of other people for such a
dangerous maneuver," he told SkyTG24 television. "Command systems did not
function as they should."
He said the ship had come within 150 metres (yards) of the coast, which he
called "incredibly close."
Agnese Stella, a 72-year-old housewife who has lived on Giglio for 50 years
told Reuters: "It came much too close (to shore), it never comes this close
normally."
"UNMARKED" ROCK
Magistrates said Schettino abandoned the vessel not long after midnight, well
before all the passengers were taken off.
The vessel's operator, Costa Crociere, a unit of Carnival Corp & Plc, the
world's largest cruise company, said the Costa Concordia had been sailing on
its regular course when it struck a submerged rock.
In a television interview, Schettino said the rock was not marked on any
maritime charts of the area.
After an massive rescue operation throughout the weekend, involving
helicopters, ships and lifeboats, many passengers had already left the area and
returned home and attention began to turn to the cleanup.
Local officials expressed concern the ship's fuel, at full load as it had just
begun the cruise, could spill into pristine waters off Giglio. So far there was
no sign of pollution. Dutch maritime services company SMIT said it had been
hired to pump fuel off the ship once the rescue was over.
The coast guard says the removal of the 2,380 tonnes of fuel cannot begin until
the rescue is complete because the operation could cause the vessel to move or
sink further into the water.
from
Vanessa The Google Girl.
my skype name is rainbowstar123
Other related posts:
- » [guide.chat] cruise ship sinks like the titanic - vanessa
