guardian.co.uk,
John Hooper in Porto Santo Stefano and Tom Kington in Rome, Saturday 14 January
2012
Cruise
ships runs aground off coast of Tuscany. Link to this video
The Italian
captain of a ship that sank off the coast of Tuscany was placed under arrest
after one of the most dramatic holiday cruise disasters ever seen in the
Mediterranean. Three passengers died and 69 were still unaccounted for after
the 114,000-tonne Costa Concordia smashed into rocks amid scenes of panic and
chaos.
Local
prosecutors said Francesco Schettino was being investigated for manslaughter
and abandoning ship following reports his stricken vessel failed to raise a
mayday alert as the disaster unfolded.
There was
speculation that a power failure on board the ship could have led to it losing
navigational control and crashing into the rocks. Experts said that passenger
reports of a power blackout and large blast indicated the vessel could have
suffered an explosion in the engine room.
As the ship
came to rest half submerged on its side, yards from the coast of the island of
Giglio late on Friday, anger rose among the thousands of passengers who had
swum or been ferried and flown to safety over what they described as a botched
evacuation by crew members who panicked.
Italian
police confirmed that two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member drowned in
the accident. About 30 people were reported injured, with three critically
hurt.
A British
embassy official said not all the Britons on board the vessel had yet been
accounted for. He said consular officials had so far confirmed that
"around 20" survived.
Survivors
described extraordinary scenes of panic, confusion and fear as the ship tilted
on its side following what sounded like a loud explosion. Kirsty Cook, one of
eight British dancers working on the cruise, said she was "lucky to be
alive" after using a rope ladder to climb down to a waiting rescue boat.
Another dancer, Rosie Metcalf, 22, from Dorset, had to cling to a fire hose
before being winched to safety by a helicopter crew.
The Costa
Concordia, which was built in Italy and launched in 2006, set off from
Civitavecchia on Friday for a Mediterranean cruise, carrying 3,206 passengers
and 1,023 crew. As the ship slid between Giglio and the coast, passengers
sitting down for their first dinner on board felt a shudder before the lights
went out.
Despite an
announcement that the ship had suffered no more than an electrical failure,
diners became suspicious as their drinks began to tilt on the tables in front of
them. Schettino said he had struck rocks "which were not indicated on
maps" and denied allegations that he was sailing too close to the coast.
"We
were 300m from the rocks and that outcrop should not have been there," he
said. As dawn broke yesterday, a huge chunk of torn-off rock could be seen
protruding from a 50-metre gash in the ship's hull below the waterline.
Schettino
tried to steer the ship towards the coast to make evacuation easier, but as
water poured into the lower decks the ship began to list dangerously and it was
soon too late to lower the lifeboats.
Passengers
complained that they had urged crew members to let them on to the lifeboats as
the ship manoeuvred but were told the captain had not yet given permission. A
group of Croatian tourists said that, due to the tilting of the ship, one
lifeboat that had been eventually loaded with passengers crashed back into the
ship.
"There
was panic immediately," said Francesca Sinatra, a passenger from Rome.
"People were shouting and climbing on each other." The lifeboat she
was in collided a number of times with the listing hull as it was lowered into
the water due to the angle, she added.
Italian
journalist Mara Parmegiani Alfonsi, who was on board, said the crew did not
appear to have been trained for the emergency.
Rescue
ships arrived to help take passengers off as the vessel tipped closer to the
water. Helicopters were dispatched by the coastguard, navy and air force to
hoist passengers to safety and light up the sea with searchlights as passengers
– "a few hundred", according to one rescuer – plunged into the water
to swim to the shore.
Cruise
operator Costa Crociere said in a statement: "Emergency procedures have
been promptly activated, our crew members on board are professionally trained and
they took all the necessary actions to assist our guests and help them to
evacuate the ship."
But the
sailors' union Nautilus International said that, 100 years on from the sinking
of the Titanic, "many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and
the sheer number of people on board raises serious questions about
evacuation".
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| The cruise operators thanked the citizens of Giglio for rescuing those on board |
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