Rescue squads used controlled explosions yesterday to enter a stricken Italian cruise liner in the increasingly despairing hunt for survivors as authorities almost doubled their estimate of the number of missing people to 29.
The Costa Concordia’s owners accused their captain of causing Friday’s disaster by veering the ship too close to shore, where it hit a rock, in a bravura “salute” to residents of a Tuscan island off Italy’s Mediterranean coast.
Captain Francesco Schettino was arrested on Saturday, accused of manslaughter and abandoning the ship before all people were evacuated. He was due to appear before magistrates for questioning yesterday morning.
Photo: Reuters
Prosecutors say Schettino also refused to go back on board when requested by the coastguard.
The two explosions were carried out early yesterday morning to allow firefighters and scuba divers to enter parts of the ship that they had not yet been able to search.
The weather improved slightly from Monday, but seas were still choppy.
The giant cruise liner slid a little on Monday, threatening to plunge 2,300 tonnes of fuel below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding nature reserve.
The slippage forced rescuers to suspend efforts to find anyone still alive after three days in the capsized hull, resting on a jagged slope outside the picturesque harbor on the island of Giglio. Six bodies have been found. Most of the 4,200 passengers and crew survived, despite hours of chaos.
An Italian coastguard official said late on Monday that the number of people missing had been revised up to 29 — 25 passengers and four crewmembers — from 16, showing how much uncertainty still surrounded the disaster.
Another maritime official said later that 10 Germans were thought to be among the missing passengers.
The 114,500-tonne ship, one of the biggest passenger vessels ever to be wrecked, foundered after striking a rock just as dinner was being served on Friday night. It quickly rolled on its side, revealing a long gouge below the waterline.
A senior firefighter, Luciano Roncalli, said that all the unsubmerged areas of the liner had been searched, indicating there was faint hope of finding more survivors.
Italian Environment Minister Corrado Clini said he would declare a state of emergency because of the risk that the ship’s fuel would leak into the pristine Tuscan Archipelago National Park. No fuel spillage has been detected so far, he said on Italian TV on Monday evening.
Investigators say the ship was much too close to the shore and its owner, Costa Cruises, said the captain had carried out the rash maneuver to “make a bow” to people on Giglio Island, who included a retired Italian admiral.
Schettino denies charges of manslaughter.
His lawyer issued a statement saying the skipper was “broken up, troubled and saddened by the loss of life.”
However, he believed he had saved many lives by carrying out a difficult emergency maneuver with anchors after the accident, which turned the ship closer to the shore.
The father of the ship’s head waiter said that his son had telephoned him before the accident to say the crew would salute him by blowing the ship’s whistle as they passed close by Giglio, where both the waiter, Antonello Tievoli, and his 82-year-old father Giuseppe live.
Costa Cruises CEO Pier Luigi Foschi on Monday blamed errors by Schettino for the disaster. He said company vessels were forbidden to come closer than 500m to the Giglio coast. Investigators say the liner was about 150m offshore when it hit the rocks.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese