I’ve been on these massive cruise ships. They’re like floating cities and taller than the Empire State building. In addition to that, they’re the most advanced ships afloat with state of the art navigation. So I still cannot fathom how something like this could happen without a series power failure that rendered ship’s helm inoperative.
Daily Mail reports:
• Passengers tell of 'chaos' as crew members said 'go back to your cabins'
• Survivors leapt for their lives into the icy sea as the liner rolled onto its side
• Captain of the ship in custody with another crew member
• Boat was 'four miles off course' when it hit rocks
• Bodies of two French passengers and a Peruvian crewman recovered
• One victim, 65, died from heart attack following shock of cold water
• Liner had listed so badly 'lifeboats had difficulty being launched'
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 ship started to list, with some crew members even telling holidaymakers to return to their cabins.
A gaping 160ft gash was torn in the hull, which quickly filled a 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.
'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.
More pics here
The first thing you do before setting sail is report with your life-vests to your assigned muster stations. I’ve been on 5 cruises and I’ll still don’t know what to do if something like this were to happen. So, I can totally understand the chaos of what happened on the Costa Concodia. It’s totally mindboggling that something like this can happen on a 21st century cruise ship.
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