More bodies found on cruise ship (From Daily Echo)

Five more bodies found on Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia

2:38pm Tuesday 17th January 2012 in Shipping

FIVE more bodies have been found aboard the cruise ship that has capsized in the Mediterranean.

Rescue workers today recovered the remains of four men and one woman, all aged in their 50s and 60s, from the wreck of the Costa Concordia.

Twenty-nine people are still missing following the accident on Sunday.

Italian officials have released a list of the nationalities of the cruise ship passengers and crew who remain missing.

They are 14 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans, one Hungarian, one Indian and one Peruvian.

The sixth body recovered on Monday has not yet been identified but is probably one of the 29 people listed officially missing.

Italian navy divers have set off explosives to create four small openings in the hull of a cruise ship which ran aground near a Tuscan island to speed the search for 29 missing passengers and crew.

Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TV 24 the micro-charges created four openings to allow divers ''to enter easily for the search''.

The holes were made both above and below the water level.

Television footage showed the holes to be less than 6ft (2m) in diameter.

Mr Busonero said the rescuers were racing against time.

The cruise liner tragedy, in which six people have been confirmed dead, has turned into a potential environmental crisis, as rough seas battering the stricken ship raised fears that fuel might leak into pristine the waters around Giglio island.

Salvage firm Smit said it will take between two to four weeks to safely remove the oil from the ship.

It said the search operation for the missing 29 people has priority and a survey of the ship must take place before the extraction begins.

However, officials said the two operations can go on in tandem and the fuel extraction operation could begin today if approved by Italian officials.