Cruise disaster: Italian navy blasts holes in Costa Concordia

Ten minutes would not have been enough time to fill and lower the boats,
suggesting that officers on board the ship had started organising evacuation
before the captain gave his order.

Mr Schettino, who is being held in custody in Grosseto on the mainland and
faces up to 15 years in prison, allegedly left the cruise ship in a lifeboat
well before hundreds of passengers, including women and children, had
managed to escape.

He was still telling the Coast Guard in Livorno at 10.08pm on Friday night
that the situation on board was “all OK”.

But the Coast Guard was becoming increasingly alarmed at his apparent
complacency. “There is no time to lose, if they’re talking about life
jackets, the situation is critical. There is a need to act quickly,” said
Gregorio De Falco, according to transcripts.

On Tuesday, the Italian navy was blasting holes in the hull of the stricken
Costa Concordia cruise ship to improve access for divers and caving
specialists who are resuming the search for bodies and survivors.

Three loud blasts rang out around the tiny island of Giglio, where the 114,000
tonne luxury liner is resting on its side in about 45ft of water, just
outside the island’s tiny harbour.

Navy specialists in inflatable boats set the charges against the hull, ripping
open gaps through which divers will be able to enter the bowels of the
vessel.

Authorities on Monday night almost doubled the estimate of the number of
passengers and crew still missing, from 16 to 29, after German authorities
said that checks had shown 10 of their citizens were still missing.

Hope that anyone could have survived inside the ship since it ran aground on
Friday night is fading.

The areas of the vessel that lie above water have been searched, as well as
part of the unsubmerged area – a labyrinth of corridors, cabins,
restaurants, gyms and entertainment areas which are now swirling with debris
such as luggage and bits of carpeting.

Mr Schettino, will be questioned on Tuesday by investigating magistrates in
Grosseto, on the mainland, where he is being held in custody on suspicion of
abandoning the ship. He could also face multiple charges of manslaughter.

Magistrates will decide whether to keep him in custody.

As Italian
Navy divers continued the search for survivors:

– Salvage crews were racing against time to prevent the ship, perched on the
edge of an undersea ledge, from slipping to 300ft.

– Choppy waters hampered attempts to pump out 500,000 gallons of fuel to
prevent an environmental disaster.

– Mr Schettino had previously said that he liked to “diverge from standard
procedures” but would not want to be “the captain of the Titanic”.

– Hundreds of people joined a Facebook page to vent their anger at the
captain’s “cowardice” in leaving his ship.

Prosecutors say Mr Schettino refused orders to get back on board the Concordia
and take command of the mass evacuation when requested to do so by the
Coastguard.

The 1,000ft long ship, one of the biggest passenger vessels ever to be
wrecked, foundered after striking a rock off the coast of Giglio just as
dinner was being served on Friday night.

The Italian government says it fears an ecological disaster if the ship’s half
million gallons of diesel and oil start to leak into pristine coastal
waters, part of a huge marine national park around the Tuscan archipelago of
islands.

The captain owas accused of “inexcusable” recklessness on Monday night after
it emerged that he steered too close to shore to come within sight of his
head waiter’s family home on the island of Giglio.

Half an hour before disaster struck, the waiter’s sister posted an entry on
her Facebook page saying she had been told the ship was “going to pass
really close”, and sending “a big hello to my brother”.

Pier Luigi Foschi said the course of the 1,000-ft long ship was
pre-programmed. “The fact that it deviated from this course is due solely to
a manoeuvre by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorised and unknown
to Costa,” he said.

Antonello Tievoli, 46, the head waiter of the Costa Concordia, is “tormented
by a sense of guilt” over the tragedy, his family said, even though he did
not ask the captain to perform the sail-by.

His father, Giuseppe Tievoli, 82, said: “Antonello called me to say the ship
would be passing by the island at around 9:30 and they would come and give
us a whistle to say hello. It was something they often did.

“The ship obviously came too close. I don’t know if Antonello asked the
captain to come near, but the responsibility is always and only the
captain’s.”

Antonello Tievolli, head waiter of The Concordia’s restaurant, right,
with unknown couple

At 9.08pm, half an hour before the ship was ripped open by submerged rocks 150
yards from the shore, the waiter’s sister Patrizia, a teacher who also lives
on Giglio, wrote on her Facebook page: “In just a little while the Concordia
is going to pass really close. A big hello to my brother who will finally
disembark at Savona to enjoy a bit of rest.”

Hours later, after the ship capsized, she wrote: “A tragedy, a deadful
tragedy. I can’t believe it’s true. I just hope I will wake up and realise
that it was a nightmare. The longest night of my life.”

She later posted a black and white photograph of the Titanic, dated 1912, next
to one of the Concordia on its side, dated 2012.

She also passed judgement on the captain’s claim that the rocks were not
marked on his nautical charts. “Not very convincing at all!” she wrote.

Mr Schettino, 52, had reportedly performed the sail-by several times in the
past, as a salute to his former boss Mario Palombo, a retired Costa captain
who has a summer home on the island.

From his house in Grosseto, Tuscany, where he spends the winter months, Mr
Palombo said: “I cannot understand what could have happened, what passed
through my colleague’s head. The captain sets the course – on board the
ship, he’s king. But I don’t want to be dragged into this argument.”

Costa confirmed that its captains had been given permission to sail within 500
yards of the island to “bow” to its inhabitants in the past, but said the
captain was solely to blame for what happened on Friday night.

Mr Foschi said his company’s ship were fitted with alarms that sound when they
deviate from the programmed route.

He apologised to the families of the dead, but said that “this route was put
in correctly,” and “human error” was to blame.

Francesco Verusio, the chief prosecutor in the case, said: “We are struck by
the unscrupulousness of the reckless manoeuvre that the commander of the
Costa Concordia made near the island of Giglio. It was inexcusable.”

Mr Schettino only told the coastguard his ship was taking on water 45 minutes
after it hit the rocks, and allegedly abandoned the vessel while hundreds of
people were still on board, later ignoring an order from the coastguard to
go back to the capsized vessel to supervise the evacuation.

His lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, said the captain was “overcome and wants to
express his greatest condolences to the victims”.

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