3 Filipino crew hurt in cruise ship sinking – DFA

A luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia leans on its side after running aground the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday (January 14, 2012), sending water pouring in through a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in the hull and forcing the evacuation of some 4,200 people from the listing vessel. GREGORIO BORGIA/ AP PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—At least three of the 300 Filipino crew members of the Costa Concordia were among the reported injured when the cruise ship ran aground Friday off the coast of Grosseto in Tuscany, according to the Philippine Embassy in Rome.

In a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Ambassador to Italy Virgilio Reyes said on Sunday one of the Filipinos had a broken arm while another suffered from hypothermia. He did not describe the injury to the third Filipino nor did he identify the three.

Reyes quoted a rescued Filipino crew member as saying, “The Filipino crew are generally safe.”

“An official roll call (of the vessel’s 1,000 crew) is still being undertaken,” Reyes said.

The embassy has “dispatched a seven-man emergency response team to Grosseto to evaluate the situation on the ground and to provide the necessary assistance to Philippine nationals,” he added.

“The Filipino seamen are being supported by Magsaysay Shipping Corp., their (Manila-based) manning agency,” according to the embassy.

In church, schools, hotels

Initial reports reaching the embassy said the cruise liner ran aground “last Friday evening off the coast of Grosseto.”

“Around 4,000 persons were onboard, including 1,000 crew members, around 300 of whom were Filipinos,” said the reports.

They added: “The Italian Coast Guard immediately responded to the scene to rescue the passengers who were brought to the nearest island, Giglio, in lifeboats. The passengers and Filipino crew members are temporarily housed in a church, hotels and schools on Giglio. Many of them have been transported to the mainland.”

Two French passengers and one Peruvian crew member have been confirmed killed, apparently after jumping into the chilly Mediterranean waters after the Costa Concordia hit rocks and began to keel over, Agence France-Presse reported.

Only one fatality was identified. He was Tomas Alberto Costilla Mendoza, 49, a crewman from Peru.

Investigators arrested the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, on Saturday and were to begin analyzing the “black box” recovered by rescuers, which logged all of the 291-meter ship’s movements as well as conversations between personnel.

Schettino told Italian news channel TGCOM the ship hit a rock that was not on the charts and he had tried to save as many people as possible. First officer Ciro Ambrosio was also arrested, local prosecutors said.

Italian media said the two face possible charges of multiple homicide and abandoning ship before all the passengers were rescued.

Approached in awkward way

The captain “approached Giglio Island in a very awkward way, hit a rock that stuck into its left side, making (the boat) list and take on a huge amount of water in the space of two or three minutes,” a prosecutor told reporters.

Island residents said the ship was sailing far too close to Giglio and hit an underwater reef that was well-known to the local population of 800.

There was relief though early Sunday when a South Korean couple on their honeymoon, both aged 29, were rescued by firemen from a lower deck where they had been trapped, Italian news agency ANSA said.

They had boarded the ship on their first-ever cruise at Civitavecchia, further south on the Italian coast.

Firefighters heard distinct shouts, “one in a male voice, the other in a female voice,” Coast Guard officer Marcello Fertitta said.

They turned out to be the honeymooning couple who were brought out in good condition, Prato fire Cmdr. Vincenzo Bennardo told The Associated Press from the scene.

Lifeboats failed to function

Rescuers said they plucked 100 people from the sea in the night between Friday and Saturday after some of the lifeboats onboard failed to function or could not descend to the water from a ship that was already badly listing.

About 60 people who had not managed to escape in lifeboats were rescued from the vessel itself, including one passenger with a broken leg.

Some of the survivors were in evening wear as they had just been settling down to dinner when the accident happened. There were also bar and restaurant staff in crimson blazers and kitchen staff in white smocks.

“We were lucky we were so close to the shore. Thank God. Everyone was very afraid,” said José Rodriguez, a 43-year-old barman from Honduras.

The people onboard included some 60 nationalities, and some 52 were children under six. Nearly a third of the passengers were Italian, followed by Germans and French. There were also Americans, Russians and Japanese onboard.

The British and French ambassadors visited the scene of the accident, along with diplomatic officials from more than a dozen countries.

They privately expressed frustration over a lack of information about their citizens and on the handling of the ship’s evacuation.

At least 42 people were injured, including two seriously—a woman with a blow to the head and a man struck in the spine, medical sources said.

The disaster happened just hours after the ship left the port of Civitavecchia near Rome at the start of a Mediterranean cruise that was to take it to Savona in northwest Italy and then on to Marseille and Barcelona.

An executive with the Genoa-based company that owns the cruise ship insisted the vessel had not strayed off course.

“It is not correct to say the boat was off its route,” said Gianni Onorato, managing director of Costa Crociere SpA.

The company is the biggest cruise operator in Europe, with a turnover of 2.9 billion euros ($3.7 billion) in 2010, according to its website.

Costa Crociera is owned by the US-based cruise giant Carnival Corp. which issued a statement expressing sympathy.

“Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia, especially the loved ones of those who lost their lives. They will remain in our thoughts and prayers in the wake of this tragic event.” Jerry E. Esplanada, AFP, AP