Six people are dead and 29 people remain missing in the wake of cruise ship Costa Concordia running aground Friday off Italy's coast. Rock Center took a boat out to the partially sunken ship with an experienced yacht captain who said that the cruise ship's captain was "completely irresponsible." Crew members and passengers on the ship described the harrowing nightmare. Harry Smith reports.
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By msnbc.com staff and news services
GIGLIO, Italy -- A stricken Italian cruise liner shifted on its rocky resting place as worsening weather disrupted an increasingly despairing hunt for survivors and authorities almost doubled their estimate of the number missing to 29 people.
As the Costa Concordia's owners accused their captain of veering too close to shore in a "salute" to residents of a Tuscan island, the giant ship slid a little on Monday, threatening to plunge 500,000 gallons 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. Most of the 4,200 passengers and crew survived, despite hours of chaos.
Captain Francesco Schettino was arrested a day after the disaster accused of manslaughter and abandoning the ship before all of the people were evacuated. Prosecutors say he also refused to go back on board when requested by the coastguard.
Rescue operations have been called off after the Costa Concordia slipped further into the sea. Rescue workers had to be plucked from the ship by helicopter. ITN's Neil Connery reports.
Schettino was due to appear before magistrates for questioning on Tuesday morning.
An Italian Coast Guard official, Marco Brusco, said late Monday that the number of people missing had been revised up to 29 -- 25 passengers and four members of staff -- from 16, showing how much uncertainty still surrounded the disaster
He didn't explain the jump, but indicated 10 of the missing are Germans.
'They were really excited'
Two Americans are also among the missing. Jerry and Barbara Heil live in White Bear Lake, a suburb of about 25,000 people 15 miles outside St. Paul, Minn.
Sarah Heil, their daughter, told WBBM radio in Chicago that her parents had been looking forward to their 16-day vacation.
Off the Tuscan coast of Italy, search and rescue efforts resumed Monday along the capsized cruise liner, three days since the ship struck rock and flipped on its side, with more than 4,000 people on board. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
"They raised four kids and sent them all to private school, elementary to college, so they never had any money," Sarah Heil said. "So when they retired, they went traveling. And this was to be a big deal ? a 16-day trip. They were really excited about it."
Brusco said there was still "a glimmer of hope" there could be survivors on parts of the vast cruise liner that have yet to be searched. The last survivor, a crewman who had broken his leg, was rescued on Sunday.
Luciano Roncalli, a senior firefighter, told Reuters that all the unsubmerged areas of the liner had been searched.
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 an Italian television show on Monday evening.
Should rougher seas dislodge the wreck and cause it to sink or break up, that could scupper any hopes for the owners, a unit of Florida's Carnival Corp., of salvaging a liner which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build just six years ago.
Regardless of the waters they're operating in, cruise ships are governed by a series of international maritime treaties that set standards for everything from evacuation procedures to emergency crew training. NBC's Tom Costello reports.
Investigators say the ship was far too close to the shore and its owners, 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.
The father of the ship's head waiter told Reuters 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 chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi on Monday blamed errors by Schettino for the disaster. He told a news conference the company would provide its captain with any assistance he required. "But we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," he added.
Msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10171694-italian-shipwreck-missing-tally-leaps-to-29
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