Italian cruise ship death toll at six, captain held_美文

Italian cruise ship death toll at six, captain held

Rescue workers searching the half-submerged hulk of an Italian cruise ship for missing passengers and crew recovered a sixth body on Monday, more than 48 hours after the vessel capsized off Italy's west coast.

The captain of the 114,500-ton Costa Concordia, arrested on Saturday, was accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all of the more than 4,200 people on board had been evacuated.

Francesco Schettino's employers, Costa Crociere, said he appeared to have made "serious errors of judgment" and had brought the ship too close to shore where it struck a rock that tore a large hole in the hull.

The disaster occurred as passengers were sitting down to dinner on Friday night, triggering scenes of panic with passengers jostling to get on lifeboats and some leaping into the icy sea. Divers combing the vessel for 16 people unaccounted for said conditions had deteriorated since the weekend. "The sea is much rougher today, it's much more difficult to work," one said.

Three people, a South Korean honeymoon couple and a member of the ship's crew, were rescued on Sunday and police divers also recovered the bodies of two elderly men, still wearing emergency life jackets. The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were found on Saturday.

A sixth body, that of an adult male passenger, was found just before dawn on Monday, officials said.

Four French passengers are still missing, the French foreign ministry said on Monday, after several others were found. Of the 21 French passengers reported missing late on Sunday, 17 have been found thanks to information supplied either by their families, the Italian authorities or the ship's owner, a ministry spokesman said.