Crippled Costa cruise ship changes course

A crippled Italian cruise ship being towed in the Indian Ocean with more than 1,000 people on board and no air conditioning will not reach land in the Seychelles until tomorrow.

The cruise ship company said that food, satellite phones and VHF radios would be taken to the Costa Allegra by helicopter.

Photos released yesterday showed hundreds of people milling on the ship’s outside decks, and officials said passengers would sleep there as well instead of in their unlit cabins.

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The Costa Allegra has 636 passengers and 413 crew members on board. Among them are 212 Italian, 31 British and eight US passengers. Four of the passengers are children aged three or younger.

The ship lost power on Monday after a fire in its generator room knocked out its engines as well as its lights and air conditioning.

Cruise ship officials first said that they would take the ship to Desroches, a small island in the Seychelles.

However, they later said that the ship would instead go to the main island of Mahe.

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They said the change was for safety and logistical reasons, and that the Allegra would reach Mahe early tomorrow. Two tugs later joined a French fishing vessel in towing the cruise ship.

The fire on board the Costa Allegra came only six weeks after one of its sister ships, the Costa Concordia, hit a reef and capsized off Italy, killing 25 people and leaving seven missing and presumed dead.

No-one was injured in Monday’s fire, but the liner was left adrift at sea in a region where Somali pirates prey on ships.

Officials sought to play down concerns and a spokesman said an armed nine-member Italian military team on anti-pirate duty was on board the Allegra, but added that the ship had yesterday left any “high-risk area for pirates”.

Both ships are operated by the Italian Costa Crociere SpA company, which is owned by the Florida-based Carnival Corporation.