Couple rescued 24 hours after cruise ship capsizes off Italy

By NBC, msnbc.com staff and news services
Updated 9:54 p.m. ET: Two survivors of a cruise ship grounding who were found nearly a day after the ship rolled onto its side have been identified as a South Korean couple on their honeymoon.

Prato fire commander Vincenzo Bennardo told The Associated Press that rescuers who had been banging on doors of the ship cabins all night finally heard a reply from one of the rooms early Sunday. He said the two, about 29 years old, were in good condition. He said the rescuers never stopped going door-to-door during the night in the non-submerged part of the ship.

The Costa Concordia hit a reef during dinner Friday and capsized off Tuscany, forcing the evacuation of about 4,200 people. Three bodies were found and about 40 people remained unaccounted for.


Updated 6:55 p.m. ET: Rescue workers found two people still alive on a capsized Italian cruise ship, state television reported Sunday, according to Reuters.

The Italian news agency ANSA quoted rescuers as saying the two survivors were found in good condition in a cabin late Saturday and were being brought out.

Fire officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment near the tiny island of Giglio, where the Costa Concordia went aground and turned on its side Friday night, leaving three people dead and forcing some 4,000 aboard to evacuate.

Firefighters on the ship had heard the voices of a man and a woman several decks below where they were searching.

More than 4,200 passengers were aboard the Costa Concordia when it apparently struck rocks near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, ripping a hole in its hull and forcing thousands to escape in a chaotic, terrifying evacuation.

Passengers arrive at Porto Santo Stefano after a
 cruise ship ran aground

Three bodies have been recovered and authorities said late Saturday that about 40 people were still unaccounted for.

Updated 5:55 p.m. ET: The captain of the 4,200-pasenger luxury cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Tuscany has been detained, authorities said Saturday.

Francesco Schettino is being investigated for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship, police said, according to Reuters. He was taken to a jail in the provincial capital Grosseto to await questioning by a magistrate.

Three bodies were recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia ran aground near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, ripping a hole in its hull and forcing thousands to escape in a chaotic, terrifying evacuation. Some 40 people are still unaccounted for.

Experts have questioned how Schettino, the 52-year-old captain with 11 years working for the ship's owner, could hit so close to the island of Giglio given Italy's well mapped sea lanes.


The chief prosecutor in the Tuscan city of Grosseto, Francesco Verusio, was quoted by the ANSA news agency as telling reporters that the captain "very ineptly got close to Giglio," The Associated Press reported.

"The ship struck a reef that got stuck inside the left side, making it (the ship) lean over and take on a lot of water in the space of two, three minutes," he said.

Schettino was at the command, and it was "he who ordered the route, that's what it appears to us. It was a deliberate" choice to follow that route, ANSA quote him as saying.