The Costa Concordia is a cruise ship owned by Carnival Cruises. It met its fate on January 13 when it capsized and sunk off a small island near Italy.
PORTO SANTO STEFANO, Italy (AP) — Divers searched the submerged part of a luxury cruise liner that went aground off Italy’s coast in case any of 70 people unaccounted for might be trapped inside, a coast guard official said Saturday, as passengers described a delayed and terrifying evacuation. Three bodies were recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull and sending in a rush of water.
One of the victims was a Peruvian crew member, a diplomat from the South American country said, adding that a Peruvian woman was also missing. The ANSA new agency identified the other two fatalities as French passengers, but didn’t cite a source.
Passengers described a scene reminiscent of “Titanic”, saying they escaped the ship by crawling along upended hallways, desperately trying to reach safety as the lights went out and plates and glasses crashed. Helicopters whisked some survivors to safety, others were rescued by private boats in the area, and witnesses said some people jumped from the ship into the dark, cold sea. The ship was lying virtually flat off Giglio’s coast, its starboard side submerged in the water and the huge gash showing clearly on its upturned hull. Passengers complained the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.
Carnival Corp., which owns the cruise line that the ship belongs to, didn’t address the allegations in a statement it issued. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially the loved ones of those who lost their lives. They will remain in our thoughts and prayers in the wake of this tragic event.” Authorities have been checking names against the passenger list, but have had a hard time accounting for everyone. They still hadn’t counted all the survivors by the time they reached the mainland 12 hours later.
An evacuation drill was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, even though some passengers had already been on board for several days. “It was so unorganized, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5 p.m.,” said Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, who had set out on the cruise of the Mediterranean hours earlier.
“We had joked ‘What if something had happened today?’” “Have you seen ‘Titanic?’ That’s exactly what it was,” said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents on the first of two cruises around the Mediterranean.
They all bore dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells, trying to reach rescue boats.
“We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing,” her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61 said. “We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls.” She choked up as she recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall. “He said ‘take my baby,’” Mrs. Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand as she teared up. “I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn’t want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn’t hold her.
“I thought that was the end and I thought they should be with their baby,” she said. “I wonder where they are,” daughter Valerie whispered. The family said they were some of the last off the ship, forced to shimmy along a rope down the exposed side of the ship to a waiting rescue vessel below.
Survivor Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, shivered near the harbor of Porto Santo Stefano, on the mainland, after stepping off a ferry from Giglio. She was wearing elegant dinner clothes — a gray cashmere sweater, a silk scarf — along with a large pair of hiking boots, which a kind islander gave her after she lost her shoes in the scramble to escape. Left behind in her cabin were her passport, credit cards and phone.
Hammer, 65, told The Associated Press she was eating her first course, an appetizer of cuttlefish, sauteed mushrooms and salad, on her first night aboard her first-ever cruise, which was a gift to her and her husband, Gert, from her local church where she volunteers. Suddenly, “we heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn’t anything dangerous,” she said.
Several passengers concurred, saying crew members for a good 45 minutes told passengers there was a simple “technical problem” that had caused the lights to go off. Seasoned cruisers, however, knew better and went to get their life jackets from their cabins and report to their “muster stations,” the emergency stations each passenger is assigned to, they said. Once there, though, crew members delayed lowering the lifeboats even thought the ship was listing badly, they said. “We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side,” said Mike van Dijk, a 54-year-old from Pretoria, South Africa. “We were standing in the corridors and they weren’t allowing us to get onto the boats. It was a scramble, an absolute scramble.”
Passengers Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ontario, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, said they were watching the magic show in the ship’s main theater when they felt an initial lurch, as if from a severe steering maneuver, followed a few seconds later by a “shudder” that tipped trash cans over. The subsequent listing of the ship made the theater curtains seem like they were standing on their side. “And then the magician disappeared,” Laurie Willits said, adding that the panicked audience members fled for their cabins as well. Once at their life boat station, crew members directed passengers to go upstairs from the fourth floor deck; Alan Willits said he refused. “I said ‘no this isn’t right.’ And I came out and I argued ‘When you get this boat stabilized, I’ll go up to the fifth floor then,” he said.
Eventually, his lifeboat was lowered down. But things didn’t improve for passengers once aboard the lifeboats or on land.
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