Italian Cruise Ship Sinks, 6 Dead

Italian Cruise Ship Sinks, 6 Dead

Rescue operation searching the half-submerged wreck of an Italian cruise ship for missing passengers and crew recovered a sixth body on Monday, after more than 48 hours the vessel keel over off Italy's west coast.

The captain of the 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia, arrested on Saturday, was accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all of the more than 4,200 people on board had been evacuated.

The 290-metre-long ship, lying on its side, loomed over the little port of Giglio, an island in a maritime nature reserve off the Tuscan coast.

Francesco Schettino's employers, Costa Crociere, said he appeared to have made "serious errors of judgment" and had brought the ship too close to shore where it struck a rock that tore a large hole in the hull.

Three people, a South Korean honeymoon couple and a member of the ship's crew, were rescued on Sunday and police divers also recovered the bodies of two elderly men, still wearing emergency life jackets. The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were found on Saturday.

A sixth body, that of an adult male passenger, was found just before dawn on Monday, officials said.

Passengers say there were unexplained delays in organizing the evacuation of those on board and this had resulted in chaos. More than 60 people were injured.

Posted by James Fried on Tuesday January 17 2012, 10:12 AM EST. Ref: Yahoo. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0