ROME (AP) — Divers resumed the search today for 21 people still missing after a cruise ship capsized off the Tuscan coast, but rough seas forecast for later in the day added an element of uncertainty to the operation and plans to begin pumping fuel from the stranded vessel.
The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into a reef and capsized Friday after the captain made an unauthorized diversion from his programmed route and strayed into the perilous waters.
Eleven people have been confirmed dead, their bodies removed from the ship and frigid waters.
Divers were focusing on an evacuation route on the fourth level, now about 60 feet below the surface, where five bodies were found earlier this week, Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TG 24.
Officials restarted the search after determining the ship had stabilized after shifting on the rocks 24 hours earlier.
The ship’s sudden movement also postponed the start of the weekslong operation to extract the half-million gallons of fuel on board the vessel, as Italy’s environment minister warned Parliament of the ecological implications if the ship sinks.
“Today is an important day, the weather forecasts are negative, rough sea, we’ll have to see how the ship reacts to that,” firefighter spokesman Luca Cari said today.
Authorities on Wednesday identified the first victim: Sandor Feher, a 38-year-old Hungarian musician working aboard, who a fellow musician said helped crying children into lifejackets, then disappeared while trying to retrieve his beloved violin from his cabin. His body was found inside the wreck and identified by his mother who traveled to Italy, according to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.
Of the 11 dead and 21 missing, Italian officials have only released 27 names so far. They are two Americans, 12 Germans, six Italians, four French, and one person each from Hungary, India and Peru.
Among the missing are an Italian father and 5-year-old daughter. The girl’s mother issued a fresh appeal to speed the search and for passengers who saw the pair to come forward to help determine where they were last seen.
“Don’t stop, bring home my daughter. Get her out,” Susy Albertini, 28, said on Italian television Wednesday evening after meeting with government and port officials in Tuscany.
Albertini last saw her daughter, Dayana Arlotti, on Thursday when she dropped her off at nursery school in Rimini on Italy’s Adriadic coast, according to La Voce di Romagna newspaper. Her estranged husband picked up the girl afterward to prepare for the cruise.
William Arlotti, 36, had taken his daughter on on the cruise with his girlfriend, Michela Marconcelli, who survived. She reported seeing Dayana, who was wearing a lifejacket, slide into the water when the boat shifted, but said someone helped retrieve her, the newspaper reported.
Marconcelli said she was pushed forward onto the life raft, and lost track of her companion and his daughter.
Other missing include retirees Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake, Minn. The couple were treating themselves after putting four children through college.
The Heil children said in a blog post Wednesday that their parents were not among the passengers whose bodies were recently recovered, and they were praying that weather conditions would improve so authorities could resume search operations.
Capt. Francesco Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship before everyone was safely evacuated, was placed under house arrest Tuesday, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.
The ship’s operator, Crociere Costa SpA, has accused Schettino of causing the wreck by making the unapproved detour, and the captain has acknowledged carrying out what he called a “tourist navigation” that brought the ship closer to Giglio.
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