Captain and first officer arrested as up to 70 cruise passengers missing and three dead as survivors tell of 'chaotic evacuation'
Up to 70 cruise ship passengers were still missing and three were confirmed dead tonight, following the capsizing of a cruise liner off the coast of Italy.
As divers spent the day searching the seas around the Costa Concodia, which overturned after hitting rocks just two hours after setting sail on a seven-day cruise, the boat's captain Francesco Schettino was being quizzed by police.
Survivors of the disaster tonight told of a 'chaotic evacuation' after the the ship started to list, with some crew members even telling holidaymakers to return to their cabins.
Captain Schettino today told maritime investigators that charts showed he was in waters deep enough to navigate, but reports emerged that the boat was four miles off course when it ran aground.
The Costa Concordia after the evacuation off the Itaiian coast had been completed. Tonight Captain Francesco Schettino was being quizzed by police.
The cruise ship that ran aground is seen off the west coast of Italy as a helicopter hovers above to try and find passengers
large section of the ship with water, causing it to list to one side and creating panic within.
Passenger Antonietta Simboli, from Latina near Rome, said: 'Were sitting at our dinner table when there was a loud bang and things just flew off the table. A gaping 160ft gash was torn in the hull, which quickly filled a
'The lights went off and then came back on again and then everyone just started scrambling over each other to try and get a life vest or to the life boats. People were trampling over each other and children in the chaos.'
Another passenger who would only give her name as Silvano, said: 'There was just complete and utter chaos and panic. No from the crew seemed to know what they were doing. It was just like something from the Titanic.
'Some of the crew were telling us to go back to our cabins while others were saying go to the life boats - it was obvious we were in serious trouble because we heard a terrible scraping noise.'
Italian officials tonight said 69 passengers had not yet been accounted for, following the evacuation of 4,200.
All British holidaymakers and crew members were safe, but the bodies of two French passengers and a Peruvian crewman were recovered from the water.
Italian news agency Ansa said 4,165 out of the 4,234 people on-board were safe but officials did not know the whereabouts of the rest.
Coast guards and divers have spent the morning searching the submerged decks, the BBC said.
Meanwhile, the Concordia's grounding should serve as a wake-up call to the shipping industry and those who regulate it, the maritime professionals' union Nautilus International said.
Passengers said the ship had begun to list so much it was difficult to launch lifeboats, while some holiday-makers leaped into the water to swim to safety.
The bodies of two French passengers and one Peruvian crewman have been recovered from the sea. Fourteen people are believed to have minor injuries such as bruising.
The Foreign Office said it was not aware of any injuries or fatalities to Britons. One hundred and twenty nine Americans are believed to have been on board.
Among the dead was a man around age 65, who officials believe may not have been able to withstand the cold of the sea at night.
Terrified passengers were ordered to put on life vests and man life boats as the 850ft-long luxury 'floating palace', which costs up to £1,200 a night, began to list heavily to one side by about 20 degrees.
By this morning, the ship was lying virtually flat off the coast, its starboard side submerged in the water.
Helicopters plucked to safety some 50 people who were trapped on the liner, while ferries collected the rest taking survivors to the port of Porto Santo Stefano on the nearby mainland.
'We were having dinner aboard when we heard a loud noise, like that of the keel being dragged over something,' passenger Luciano Castro told Italian state radio.
The lights went out 'and there were scenes of panic, glasses falling to the floor,' he said.
Another passenger Mara Parmegiani said 'it was like a scene from the Titanic.'
A woman is cared for by a rescue worker and a child is taken to safety. Thousands of people have been affected by the incident
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.
The evacuation drill was only scheduled for Saturday afternoon, even though some passengers had already been on board for several days.
Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, said: 'It was so unorganized, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5pm. 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 hallways and stairwells that were nearly vertical, 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 recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their three-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall.
Mrs Ananias said: '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.
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.
Survivor Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, shivered near the harbor of Porto Santo Stefano, on the mainland, after stepping off a ferry from gilio.
She was wearing elegant dinner clothes — a cashmere sweater, a silk scarf — along with a large pair of hiking boots, which an islander gave her after she lost her shoes in the scramble to escape, along with her passport, credit cards and phone.
Hammer, 65, said that she was eating her first course, an appetizer of squid, 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.
The passengers were instructed to put on life jackets and take to the life rafts but, Hammer said, they couldn't get into the boats, because the cruise liner was tilting so much the boats couldn't 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.
'It was terrible,' Hammer said, as German and Spanish tourists were about to board buses at the port.
Fabio Costa, who worked in a shop on the stricken cruise ship, said a number of people were jumping into the sea to swim ashore.
Georgia Ananias, 61, from Los Angeles, recalled crawling along a hallway as the ship began to upturn. She said an Argentine couple handed her their three-year-old daughter, as they were unable to keep their balance. ‘I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down,’ she said. ‘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. I wonder where they are.’
Passengers Alan and Laurie Willits from Ontario said they were watching the magic show in the ship’s main theatre when they felt an initial lurch, followed a few seconds later by a shudder.
They said the ship then listed and the theatre curtains seemed like they were standing on their side. ‘And then the magician disappeared,’ said Mr Willits.
When he left the stage it panicked the audience members who fled for their cabins.
He then discovered that the ship was four miles off course, but was unsure why. One theory is that an electrical fault had wiped out the ship’s navigational power and steering control. Captain Schettino told investigators that charts showed he was in waters deep enough to navigate.
He was quoted as saying: ‘The area was safe, the water was deep enough. We struck a stretch of rock that was not marked on the charts. As far as I am concerned, we were in perfectly navigable waters.’
Francesco Paolillo, a coastguard commander, said the vessel ‘hit an obstacle’, ripping a gash across the left side of the ship, which started taking on water. He said the captain tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio’s small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier.
But when Captain Schettino realised the severity of the situation, he gave the order to abandon ship with seven short whistles.
Within minutes the Costa Concordia, began to list dramatically, reaching an angle of 20 degrees in just two hours. The angle became too steep for lifeboat evacuation, and instead, five helicopters from the coastguard, navy and air force airlifted the last 50 passengers still aboard.
By early morning, nine hours after the incident, the Costa Concordia, was at an angle of more than 80 degrees.
Officials last night said the dead were a Peruvian crew member and two French tourists.
One Italian passenger said: ‘There was just utter chaos and panic. No one from the crew seemed to know what they were doing.
‘No one counted us, neither in the life boats nor on land,’ said Ophelie Gondelle, 28, a French military officer. She said there had been no evacuation drill since she boarded on January 8.
The evacuees initially took refuge in schools, hotels and a church on the tiny island of Giglio, about 18 miles off Italy’s west coast. Mayor Sergio Ortelli issued an appeal for ‘anyone with a roof’ to open their homes to survivors. By yesterday afternoon they had all been flown to the mainland.
It must be in the genes! Curvy Solange Knowles proves she is just as bootylicious as her older sister Beyonce.
But it was the singer's younger sibling Solang's turn to show off her own enviable figure in a catwalk show at Milan Fashion Week for the Albert Ferretti Special Event.
The 25-year-old shared the runway with Amber Le Bon, the daughter of Duran Duran front man Simon Le Bon and his wife, model Yasmin Le Bon.
The Texan wore a slinky, sleeveless silver dress, that accentuated her figure and her curvy bottom.
She wore her hair in a curly Afro, while a swipe of red lipstick completed the simple, yet chic look.
Her dress was in keeping with the metallic, sparkly theme of the collection which was reminiscent of the Jazz Age of the Twenties.
Earlier this week Solange took to her Twitter in an emotional tweet after her niece Blue Ivy Carter was born in New York last Saturday to Beyonce and her rapper husband Jay-Z
The mum-of-one took time off from being an auntie to show off her curves
On Monday she tweeted: 'The most beautiful girl in the world.'
Later on that day, she wrote: In love. So THIS is what Aunty-hood feels like.'
But a day later Solange - who has a seven-year-old son - used her Twitter page to defend her family after her sister and brother-in-law faced claims that their security team had been heavy-handed with other parents at Lenox Hill Hospital on the night of Blue's birth.
'We are supposed to be super human and watch people we love get slandered, lied on, and ridiculed. It is one of THE hardest things to accept.'
She later calmed down and wrote: 'However, the pure happiness and joy I've witnessed and experienced helps me to keep my mouth shut.'
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