Two French passengers and a Peruvian crewman confirmed dead as rescue teams search for 70 people still unaccounted for
Rescue teams are combing the waters around a cruise liner that ran aground off the Italian coast in search of 70 people missing after thousands were evacuated from the stricken vessel.
Three people – two French passengers and a Peruvian crewman – have been confirmed dead after the Costa Concordia hit a sandbar on Friday evening near the Tuscan holiday island of Giglio, less than two hours after leaving port.
More than 3,200 holidaymakers – from Italy, Germany, France and Britain – and 1,000 crew were forced to flee the liner, which is now half submerged.
Italian coastguard commander Francesco Paolillo said three bodies had been retrieved from the sea.
Reports of three other deaths remained unconfirmed, he added.
Another coastguard official, Captain Cosimo Nicastro, said 70 people were unaccounted for.
Divers are helping to carry out a risky operation to inspect the submerged half of the liner to check whether anyone remains trapped inside.
Nicastro told Sky TG24 TV that "the place where they might be is in the belly of the ship", although earlier searches had not found any bodies.
Helicopters and rescue boats were immediately dispatched to pick up those on board when the ship ran into trouble. About 50 people who were trapped on the ship were rescued by helicopter after it listed so badly they could not launch lifeboats. Some people jumped overboard in a bid to swim to land as the vessel began to take on water.
According to the Italian Ansa news agency, 4,234 people had boarded the liner before it ran aground.
Rescue teams went from cabin to cabin, searching for survivors. The evacuees were taking refuge in schools, hotels and a church on the island, which is 18 miles from the Italian mainland.
About 1,000 Italians, 500 Germans and 160 French passengers were on board.
The Foreign Office said it was unable to verify reports that all 37 British nationals were safe after the ship's owners announced that the 25 passengers and 12 crew members had been accounted for.
Television footage and photographs have shown a massive gash in the hull more than 150ft long, with a huge rock embedded in the side of the ship towards the stern.
Passengers complained that the evacuation was delayed and disorganised, exacerbating the panic on board. Some said the crew delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released. The evacuation drill had been scheduled for Saturday afternoon, even though some passengers had already been on board for several days.
"It was so unorganised. Our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5pm," said Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, in the US. "We had joked what if something had happened today [Friday]."
Passenger Mara Parmegiani told Ansa that "it was like a scene from the Titanic".
Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, said she was eating her first course when the ship ran aground. "We heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous," she said.
The passengers were then instructed to put on lifejackets and take to the lifeboats. But Hammer, who was travelling with her husband, Gert, on her first ever cruise trip, said people could not get into the lifeboats because the liner was listing so badly that they could not be lowered into the sea.
The passengers were eventually rescued by one of several boats in the area that came to their aid.
"It was terrible," Hammer said, who along with many other passengers was taken to the harbour of Porto Santo Stefano, on the mainland.
"No one counted us, neither in the lifeboats or on land," said Ophelie Gondelle, 28, a French military officer from Marseille. She also said there had been no evacuation drill since she boarded in France on 8 January.
Fabio Costa, who worked in a shop on the cruise ship, said several people jumped into the sea to try to swim ashore.
People started to panic once the emergency alarm went off, pushing each other in a scramble for the lifeboats, he told BBC Breakfast. "A lot of people were falling down the stairs and were hurt because things fell on them."
He said it took the crew a long time to launch the lifeboats as the vessel had listed so much.
He said: "We just saw a huge rock, that was probably where the ship hit, and people were having huge trouble trying to get on the lifeboats. So at that point we didn't know what to do so it took hours for people to get off the ship.
"It was easier for people to jump into the sea because we were on the same level as that water so some people pretty much just decided to swim as they were not able to get on the lifeboats."
Malcolm Latarche, editor of global shipping magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions, said passenger reports of a power blackout and large "boom" noise suggested that there could have been an explosion in the liner's engine room.
Costa Cruises, which owns the ship, described the incident as a tragedy, adding that the cause was yet to be confirmed.
Its statement said: "Our first thoughts go to the victims and we would like to express our condolences and our closeness to their families and friends.
"In this moment all our efforts are focused on the completion of the last emergency operations, besides providing assistance to the guests and the crew who were on board."
The British-American owned Italian cruise line said the evacuation of the ship started promptly, but the operation was hindered as the vessel started to list to one side.
Nautilus International – the maritime professionals' union – said the grounding "should serve as a wake-up call to the industry and those who regulate it".
General secretary Mark Dickinson said: "Many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and the sheer number of people onboard raises serious questions about evacuation.
"Nautilus is by no means alone in voicing concern at underlying safety issues arising from the new generation of 'mega-ships' – whether they be passenger vessels carrying the equivalent of a small town or containerships with more than 14,000 boxes onboard."
The liner had set off from Civitavecchia in Italy and was heading to Savona when it ran aground. It was on its way to Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.
A consular team led by the vice-consul from the British embassy in Italy has arrived in Porto Santo Stefano and was "working urgently to identify British nationals involved", embassy spokesman Pierluigi Puglia said.
Sandra Cook, the mother of one of eight British dancers who were working on the ship, said her daughter, Kirsty, had to get down a rope ladder on to a boat to escape the listing Concordia.
She told BBC News: "I asked whether she had anything. She'd lost everything, and she said that she was lucky to be alive and very thankful."
Cook said all eight dancers had got off the ship safely.