‘Clandestine’ passengers add to confusion on Concordia numbers

The body pulled from the wreckage by divers yesterday was that of a woman, wearing a lifejacket. But it was badly decomposed from being underwater since the ship, with 4,200 people aboard, hit a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13.

Four other bodies, all male, also remain unidentified so far.

And Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort, told reporters the situation was confused by reports of people aboard who were not on the official list of passengers and crew.

He said an unregistered Hungarian woman’s relatives had reported she telephoned them from aboard the ship before the accident but they had not heard from her since.

He said: “There could have been X persons who we don’t know about who were clandestine passengers.”

At least 20 people were known to be still unaccounted for before yesterday’s developments. The eight dead identified so far were four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national.

The search was halted for several hours on Saturday night after indications that the ship had shifted again on its precarious perch, just a few metres from a steep drop into water deep enough to swallow the vessel whole.

There are fears that the Concordia’s fuel tanks could be ruptured by another violent move, spilling 500,000 million gallons of heavy fuel into the sea around Giglio, which is part of a seven-island archipelago in some of the Mediterranean’s most pristine waters – and a prized fishing area.

Mr Gabrielli said pollutants found near the ship so far had been identified as detergents and other substances, including chlorine, which did apparently come from the wreck but did not include any more fuel traces than would normally be found in waters near a port. Ferries and cargo ships regularly call at Giglio’s port, near the accident scene.

A ship equipped to siphon off the fuel oil is on standby, waiting for the search-and-rescue operations to conclude.

The Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, remains under house arrest as prosecutors investigate him for suspected manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship while many were still aboard.

Operator Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of US-based Carnival Cruise Lines, has said Capt Schettino deviated without permission from the vessel’s route to sail close to the island – possibly to impress passengers.

Capt Schettino has been damned by audiotapes of him arguing with coastguard orders to get back aboard the ship while many of his passengers and crew were still aboard. He has said he continued to co-ordinate the rescue, from aboard a lifeboat and then from the shore.

Rescue divers have retrieved his office safe and two suitcases, possibly containing documents important to the inquiry. A hard disk from the ship’s bridge, the control centre of the voyage, has also been retrieved, according to Italian media.

Relatives of some of the missing have been arriving at the scene. The families of a Peruvian barmaid, an Indian crewman and an elderly couple from Minnesota US, shared a boat trip to view the wreck on Saturday and scattered flowers on the water.

Coastguard official Cosimo Nicastro said the latest body was found during a particularly risky exploration down a narrow corridor.

To help the coastguard rescuers, Italian navy divers had preceded them, setting off charges to blast holes for easier entrance and exit.

Three bodies were found in the waters around the ship in the first hours after the accident. The rest were apparently trapped when the ship heeled over and have been recovered by divers.

It has emerged also that the reef which ripped Concordia open, as passengers sat down to dinner, is well-marked on maritime and even tourist maps.