Daylight reveals stricken cruise ship listing badly

Daylight reveals stricken cruise ship listing badly

 

By the morning, the ship could be seen lying virtually flat, its right-hand side submerged in the water. The ship was on an eight-day pleasure cruise around Mediterranean ports. When the ship ran aground the passengers were instructed to put on life jackets and take to the life rafts but witnesses said they could not get into the boats because the cruise liner was tilting so much the boats could not be lowered into the cold, night sea. The passengers were eventually rescued by one of several boats in the area that came to their aid. A painstaking search of the 950-foot longship's interior was being conducted to see if anyone might be left trapped inside. Some 30 people were reported injured, most of them suffering only bruises, but at least two people were reported to be in a serious condition. The evacuees were taking refuge in schools, hotels, and a church on the tiny island of Giglio – a popular vacation isle about 18 miles off Italy's central west coast. Those evacuated by helicopter were flown to Grosseto, while others, rescued by local ferries pressed into emergency service, took survivors to the port of Porto Santo Stefano on the nearby mainland. The exact circumstances of the accident were still unclear, but that the first alarm went off about 10:30pmlocal time (9.30pm GMT) on Friday, about three hours after the Costa Concordia had begun its voyage from the port of Civitavecchia, en route to its first port of call, Savona, in northwestern Italy. Coast Guard Commander Francesco Paolillo said the vessel "hit an obstacle", but it wasn't clear if it might have hit a rocky reef in the waters off Giglio. The Costa Concordia was believed to have set sail with 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew members.