Saturday 21 January 2012

Traditional Physical Autopsies – Not High-Tech 'Virtopsies' – Still the Gold Standard for Determining Cause of Death, Experts Claim

ScienceDaily (Jan. 16, 2012) — TV crime shows like Bones and CSI are quick to explain each death by showing highly detailed scans and video images of victims' insides. Traditional autopsies, if shown at all, are at best in supporting roles to the high-tech equipment, and usually gloss over the sometimes physically grueling tasks of sawing through skin and bone.

But according to two autopsy and body imaging experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the notion that "virtopsy" could replace traditional autopsy -- made popular by such TV dramas -- is simply not ready for scientifically vigorous prime time. The latest virtual imaging technologies -- including full-body computed tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, X-ray and angiography are helpful, they say, but cannot yet replace a direct physical inspection of the body's main organs.

"The traditional autopsy, though less and less frequently performed, is still the gold standard for determining why and how people really died," says pathologist Elizabeth Burton, M.D., deputy director of the autopsy service at Johns Hopkins.

Burton and Johns Hopkins clinical fellow Mahmud Mossa-Basha, M.D., in an editorial set to appear in the Annals of Internal Medicine online Jan. 17, offer their own assessment of why the numbers of conventional autopsies have steadily declined over the past decade and why, despite this drop, the virtopsy is unlikely to properly replace it anytime soon.

Burton, who has performed well over a thousand autopsies, says current imaging technologies can help tremendously when used in combination with autopsies. "It's not a question of either traditional autopsy or virtopsy," she says, "it's a question of what methods work best in determining cause of death."
The Johns Hopkins experts base their claims on evidence, some of which will also be published in the same edition of Annals, that some common diagnoses are routinely missed when imaging results are compared to autopsy findings, and there is no proof that virtopsy is a more reliable alternative to conventional autopsy, at least, for now.

According to Burton, a visiting associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, hospital autopsy rates in the United States -- for patients who die of natural causes in hospitals -- whose bodies do not have to be examined by the local medical examiner or coroner -- have fallen from a high of about 50 percent in the 1960s to about 10 percent today. At The Johns Hopkins Hospital, she says, the rate remains close to a once-required standard for hospital accreditation of 25 percent, set as an appropriate goal for teaching medical residents and fellows, and auditing clinical practice.

Burton says many reasons are behind the drop in conventional autopsy rates. Medical overconfidence in diagnostic imaging results partly explains the decline, but is also to blame for the high number of diagnostic errors.
"If we chose the right test at the right time in the right people, and followed clinical guidelines to the letter, then modern diagnostic tests would produce optimal results. But we don't," says Burton.

Burton says such misinterpretations of images, lab results, and physical signs and symptoms, help explain the roughly 23 percent of new diagnoses that are detected by autopsy.
She acknowledges that it also is easier for physicians to rely on existing diagnostic techniques to determine the cause of death than to go through the often uncomfortable task of asking grieving family members for permission to perform a conventional autopsy to confirm the cause of death. Making the process more difficult is that many physicians simply don't know what steps to take, including the paperwork and approvals, to get an autopsy performed.

For many families, dissuading factors include the prospect of delaying funeral arrangements, possible disfigurement to a loved one's body as well as the stress in coping with their loss, and the cost of an autopsy, which can run upwards of $3,000, unless the hospital offers to do it at no charge for teaching or its own auditing purposes.

While diagnostic overconfidence, changing cultural norms and cost may depress autopsy rates, Burton says, overreliance on technology underscores an inherent flaw in switching to virtopsy.
In a German study that accompanies the Hopkins editorial, conventional autopsy and imaging results, as would be seen in virtopsy, were compared for accuracy in 162 people who died in hospital. Some had just virtopsy, while the others had both virtopsy and conventional autopsy. In the 47 who underwent both procedures, 102 new diagnoses were found; while in comparison, 47 new diagnoses were found among the 115 who underwent virtopsy alone. Study results also showed that virtual autopsy by CT scan failed to pick up 20.8 percent of the new diagnoses, while conventional autopsy missed only 13.4 percent.

Medical problems most commonly missed or not seen by autopsy included air pockets in collapsed lungs (which could have impeded breathing) and bone fractures, and the most common diagnoses missed by imaging were heart attack, pulmonary emboli and cancer.

Burton says the study findings are not surprising because, for example, a tumor nodule in the lung could appear on any scan or X-ray image as a small, dense, white spot or so-called coin lesion that could easily be interpreted as a fungal infection, tuberculosis-related granuloma or benign tissue mass. But until the tissue is physically examined in a lab, after biopsy or during traditional autopsy, "there's no way to know the diagnosis with 100 percent certainty."
In addition to diagnostic weaknesses, Mossa-Basha says that perhaps the biggest hurdle for proponents of the virtopsy alternative is the high cost of imaging. Modern ultrasounds and MRI scanners cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the most advanced CT scanners needed for the most detailed imaging priced well in excess of a million dollars. Full-body CT scans, he says, run about $1,500 each, which, when added to device purchasing and maintenance fees, make vitropsy an expensive option.

Mossa-Basha says major advances in scanning devices make some forensic aspects of autopsy easier when keeping the body closed protects physical evidence from being destroyed, such as tracking bullet trajectories in gun victims.

"Steady progress in imaging technology is refining conventional autopsy, making it better and more accurate," says Mossa-Basha, a clinical fellow in neuroradiology at Johns Hopkins. "Physicians really need to be selective and proactive -- even before a critically injured patient in hospital dies -- in deciding whether an autopsy is likely to be needed and, if so, whether to approach the family in advance. Only in this way do we ensure that we are using the latest scanning devices appropriately during autopsy and when it is most effective in producing the most accurate-as-possible death certificates."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120116200602.htm

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Health-Based Approach May Help ID Groups at Risk of Genocide

ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2011) — Researchers from North Carolina State University are proposing a health-based approach to identifying groups at high risk of genocide, in a first-of-its-kind attempt to target international efforts to stop these mass killings before they start.

Genocide, or the willful attempt to exterminate a specific population, is a violation of international law. In recent years, international discussion of genocide has focused in part on finding ways to identify populations at risk in order to prevent a problem before it starts.
Some risk factors have already been identified, such as severe state oppression of a group or a regional history of genocide. Now researchers are offering a new risk factor for consideration: a population's health and its track record of prenatal care.

"This is a data-driven approach that we developed by analyzing the remains of genocide victims. There can be no confusion or claims of inaccurate reporting from third parties. The bodies of the victims speak for themselves," says Dr. Ann Ross, professor of anthropology at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research and proposed risk factor. This effort marks the first time researchers have used skeletal analysis to assess the overarching health of genocide victims before their murder.

Ross and her co-author, former NC State graduate student Ashley Maxwell, began by analyzing remains of Bosnian Muslims from the Srebrenica massacre -- where 8,000 men and boys were killed in 1995. Ross is a forensic anthropologist and worked extensively in the Balkans during the late 1990s to help identify the remains of genocide victims.

The researchers found that the Srebrenica victims had an unusually high frequency of malnutrition, poor health and inadequate prenatal care. For example, the victims had a high rate of spina bifida, which is directly related to poor nutrition and prenatal care.
"These conditions are good indicators of genocide risk because they illustrate the population's marginalized status," Ross says.

The researchers also examined epidemiological data from the World Health Organization on the general health of refugees from Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Those data were consistent with the forensic assessment of the Srebrenica victims.

"This gives politicians and international bodies another tool that can be used to identify -- and protect -- populations facing genocide," Ross says. "We need to prevent these mass murders, not sit on our hands wondering when to take action."

The paper, "Epidemiology of Genocide: An Example from the Former Yugoslavia," will be published in the fall issue of Forensic Science Policy and Management.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110919101926.htm

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3 bodies exhumed in Turkey during investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings

ANKARA, Turkey - Authorities have exhumed the bodies of three Kurds as part of their investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings by Turkish security forces in the 1990s.

The bodies were found Thursday in a village in southeast Turkey.

Earlier this month, authorities made two other grim discoveries in the region: at least 15 skulls in a suspected mass grave at a military unit and former prison, and bones that appear to be those of humans buried at an operating Turkish military outpost.

The nation's government has vowed to shed light on the alleged extrajudicial killings that occurred at the height of clashes with autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, mostly in the southeast, in the 1990s.

Human right groups believe many of the hundreds of Kurds and leftists who disappeared in the 1990s were victims of summary executions by government forces, but there have been few prosecutions. Turkey has been excavating alleged mass graves for the past two years, though no bodies have been identified yet.

The fighting between the Kurdish rebels and the Turkish security forces has left tens of thousands of people dead since 1984.

"Extrajudicial killings, which are the shame of an era, are now being seriously investigated," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Thursday. "Some crimes which could not be talked about in the past are now on the way to being solved."

Turkey has conducted reforms as part of its European Union membership bid, clearing the way for families of the disappeared to pursue the cases.

Lawyer Ridvan Dalmis, who witnessed Thursday's excavation of the three bodies near the village of Yagizoymak, said the remains allegedly are those of civilians who were killed by security forces in June 1993 and hastily buried by Kurdish villagers before they were forced to evacuate the area.

"They were buried with their clothes and there were clear signs of bullet holes on their bones," Dalmis said in a telephone interview on Friday. "Their families identified them from their clothing, but still DNA tests will be conducted."

Authorities, meanwhile, were preparing to expand an excavation in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir after unearthing at least 15 skulls and human bones over the past 10 days at the site of a former prison and military unit, said Emin Aktar, head of the Bar Association in Diyarbakir.

The bones were found by workers restoring the prison, said Aktar. The prison, notorious for alleged torture, was closed down in 2009.

"At least 27 families have petitioned authorities, saying they might be the remains of their missing loved ones," Aktar said by telephone on Friday. "We don't know yet whether they were buried in the 1990s or earlier."

Earlier this week, authorities discovered some buried bones near a helicopter landing zone of a military outpost close to the village of Gorumlu near the Iraqi border, but it was not clear if they were human bones, said Nusirevan Elci, head of the Bar Association in the town of Sirnak.

"The excavation in Gorumlu was launched following confessions of a soldier who served there in 1993," Elci said Friday. "The soldier said that he had a guilty conscience for 19 years."

Article by: SELCAN HACAOGLU , Associated Press Updated: January 20, 2012

http://www.startribune.com/world/137754038.html

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Turkey exhumes bodies of three Kurds for probe

ANKARA: Authorities have exhumed the bodies of three Kurds as part of their investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings by Turkish security forces in the 1990s. The bodies were found on Thursday in a village in southeast Turkey.

Earlier this month, authorities made two other grim discoveries in the region: at least 15 skulls in a suspected mass grave at a former prison and Turkish military unit, and bones that appear to be those of humans buried at an operating Turkish military outpost.

The nation’s government has vowed to shed light on the alleged extrajudicial killings that occurred at the height of clashes with autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, mostly in the southeast, in the 1990s.

Human right groups believe many of the hundreds of Kurds and leftists who disappeared in the 1990s were victims of summary executions by government forces, but there have been few prosecutions. Turkey has been excavating alleged mass graves for the past two years, though no bodies have been identified yet.

The fighting between the Kurdish rebels and the Turkish security forces has left tens of thousands of people dead since 1984.

“Extrajudicial killings, which are the shame of an era, are now being seriously investigated,” Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Thursday. “Some crimes which could not be talked about in the past are now on the way to be enlightened.”

Lawyer Ridvan Dalmis, who witnessed Thursday’s excavation of the three bodies near the village of Yagizoymak, said the remains allegedly are those of civilians who were killed by security forces in June 1993 and hastily buried by Kurdish villagers before they were forced to evacuate the area.

“They were buried with their clothes and there were clear signs of bullet holes on their bones,” Dalmis said in a telephone interview on Friday. “Their families identified them from their clothing, but still DNA tests will be conducted.”

Authorities, meanwhile, were preparing to expand an excavation in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir after unearthing at least 15 skulls and human bones over the past 10 days at the site of a former prison and military unit, said Emin Aktar, head of the Bar Association in Diyarbakir.

Associated Press - January 21, 2012

http://gulftoday.ae/portal/8c3cd9b4-31cc-409d-b7b8-271e39533d98.aspx

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Mangalore Air India Express crash victims bodies were misidentified - 8/8/2010

Thiruvananthapuram: The bodies of several of those who died when the Air India Express flight from Dubai crashed at the Mangalore airport on May 22 may have been misidentified by relatives, according to a paper published in the journal Current Science.

The finding by scientists at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad substantiate reports that have appeared in the media about such misidentification.

The air disaster had claimed 158 lives, including the passengers and crew. The remains of 136 persons were handed over after close relatives identified them. But the remaining 22 victims could either not be identified or had rival claimants.

The Centre, which had rushed two experts down to Mangalore on its own initiative and who used technique of genetic analysis to quickly put names to these as yet unidentified individuals.

There was considerable pressure on us to deliver results because everybody was waiting, said J. Gowrishankar, the Centre's director. There were grieving relatives who wanted the identification process over and done with. The district administration was concerned because there were no proper facilities in Mangalore to store bodies, which had begun to decompose. There was pressure from Air India too three of whose flight crew were among those unidentified.

DNA profiling involves picking up telltale genetic signatures carried in human chromosomes. Identifying a person is based on similarities in their genetic signature with those of a close blood relative, typically a parent, child or sibling.

The Hyderabad laboratory needed to produce DNA profiles from the body samples of 22 victims and match them with those from the blood samples of 32 relatives.

Identities of 10 persons could be established within three days of the samples reaching Hyderabad, say the Centre's scientists in their Current Science paper.

Further genetic testing, which took more time, conclusively showed that the remaining 12 bodies were not related to any of the claimants. That came as a surprise, since all those on the ill-fated aircraft were listed in the flight manifest.

It indicated that several bodies had been mistakenly identified by relatives, who needed to rely on a persons features and personal effects to do so, observed the scientists.

They suggested that when handling similar events in the future, the mortal remains of victims be released to families only after suitable and authentic identification was completed. If that was not practical, tissue samples must be taken at the time of autopsy for retrospective DNA analysis. Arrangements should be made, such as by using portable refrigerated caskets, to preserve human remains till the identification process ended.

Procedures for DNA-based victim identification should be incorporated as standard operating protocol in all disaster management plans.

They went on to point out that this would also require substantial expansion of the volume of routine DNA profiling activities being done in the country at present, so that adequate resources and personnel could be requisitioned in an emergency.

There are not enough trained DNA examiners in the country currently, explained Dr. Gowrishankar, one of the authors of the paper. It would be possible to expand their numbers substantially only if the State police forces across the country began using such genetic techniques far more extensively for various criminal investigations. The police, in turn, faced financial constraints as well as the lack of sufficient numbers of trained scientific personnel. Ways must be found to address both problems.

The full paper can be found on the Current Science website http://www.ias.ac.in/ currsci/

http://www.sfxkutam.com/news_index_arch3.asp?offset=860

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Canadian hair database will help forensic investigators identify bodies

University of Ottawa researchers Gilles St-Jean and Michelle Chartrand have spent years collecting and analyzing hair from across the country to build a database that will help forensic investigators identify unidentified remains. They hope to have the database up and running by the end of 2012.

On television crime shows, there is already a database for everything, Chartrand says. “In reality, those databases don’t exist. That’s what we’re trying to build here.”

And the clues to building this database are in the water.

When water is consumed, it leaves a chemical fingerprint in hair. And because people tend to drink and cook with their local water, which can vary by region, the signature left on the hair will be geographically unique.

“This is a new tool to help investigators who’ve hit a wall. Sometimes they have no idea where to look,” says St-Jean. “You can get DNA from a body that you’ve found, but if that person never wound up in a DNA database, it’s a useless piece of information.”

Researchers can tell where a person has been by studying the hydrogen and oxygen in the hair. Specifically, they analyze stable isotopes — different forms of the same chemical element — in the hair.

Because hair retains isotopic information, and grows about one centimetre each month, it can provide a personal chronology of where a person has been. If a person moves across the country over the course of a year, that movement will be reflected in the last 12cms of hair growth.

The longer the hair, the longer the trail of footsteps. It’s like having a passport that’s been stamped along the way.

So if an unidentified body is found in downtown Toronto, the person’s hair may indicate they’re not from the city, but a resident of a remote community in northern Ontario — a detail that could prove useful to investigators.

“What stable isotope analysis can do is help us focus our investigation,” says Superintendent John House of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. “With a lot of these cases, we have no idea who they are. We don’t know if they’re transients who’ve come in or even if they’re foreigners.”

As of Dec. 1, 2011, there were 205 unsolved unidentified bodies in the OPP database and about 600 unidentified bodies in Canada.

A national database, “would be a very important tool for police,” says House.

The science behind St-Jean and Chartrand’s research has already been applied in Canadian cases. Back in 2006, House suggested stable isotope analysis be used for the first time in a Newfoundland cold case: the Minerals Road skull.

In 2001, hikers trekking through the woods of Conception Bay South, NL, stumbled upon a human skull, wrapped in a plastic bag. Investigators were stumped, despite exhausting many investigative procedures.

After learning about researchers in Europe doing stable isotopic analysis, House sent them samples of the skull and hair, which was 17cms long.

Scientists determined the male victim had lived for extended periods in southern Ontario or southern Quebec, and/or Atlantic Canada. Or, the north-eastern United States. They also noted a blip in the isotopic signature, suggesting he had visited Newfoundland for a brief period about 13 months prior to his death.

Other testing helped estimate the man’s age — he had been born between 1955 and 1961 — and decapitated between 1995 and 1997.

The tests generated new leads, but not enough to crack the case. The Minerals Road skull remains unidentified.

Although the Ottawa scientists are still finalizing their research, they’ve already worked a handful of cold cases with the RCMP and provincial police forces in Ontario and Quebec.

Among the cases is that of so-called Madame Victoria.

In 2001, a badly-decomposed body of a woman in her 50s was found in a wooded area near Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital. It’s believed her remains were there for two years.

In January 2010, the coroner’s office sent Chartrand samples of the woman’s hair — It was 43 cms-long, providing 43 months of information. With the hair, Chartrand discovered the woman had moved to seven different locations in the last 43 months of her life, travelling from northern Ontario or Quebec and moving south to Montreal. The longest time she had spent in one place was seven months.

The hair also revealed that in the last five months of her life, she may have been extremely ill, and had likely lost a great deal of weight — a telling detail that helped the facial reconstruction artist.

While the hair analysis didn’t crack the case, Chartrand provided investigators with some insight into Madame Victoria’s movements, diet and health.

To build a database, showing the isotopic components in hair found from coast to coast, Chartrand spent four years travelling across Canada. She collected about 600 different locks of hair, along with samples of the local tap water. In order to obtain a stable signal specific to the region, she sought participants who rarely, if ever, travelled.

This way, when an unidentified body is found the individual’s hair can be compared against the database to try and determine where he or she may have come from.

“We’re always interested in anything that can provide additional information to help investigators,” says RCMP forensic scientist Ron Fourney, who says that even though isotopic hair analysis is still in the early stages of research, “It’s very exciting.”

“It’s another tool in the forensic tool box, a very important one and one that we haven’t seen before,” says Fourney, director of National Services and Research, which falls under the Forensic Science and Identification Services of the RCMP. The agency is working with the scientists to build the database, a project that is being funded by the government agency Centre for Security Science.

In Canada, the hydrogen isotope signals in water vary according to latitude and altitude. As you move north, they tend to become less heavy — a signal that will be reflected in the hair of those who live there.

While this method of hair analysis is gaining popularity in forensic science cases where DNA testing and other traditional means of investigation have shed little light, it does have its own geographical limits.

Scientists can identify regions, but not cities. For instance, they can tell whether someone came from southern or northern Ontario, but can’t pinpoint Kitchener or Kapuskasing.

Also, areas in a region that get drinking water from the same source are lumped together. For instance, the hydrogen isotope signals in hair of people living in Hamilton, Toronto and Kingston will be similar because those cities all rely on Lake Ontario for water.

“When I moved from Toronto to Ottawa and started drinking the local water, my signal started to change immediately,” says Chartrand, explaining that Ottawa gets its drinking water from the Ottawa River, the source of which comes from the north.

Chartrand and St-Jean are still determining the impact hair dye has on isotope values. But, so far, research indicates there’s no change for hair that has been bleached or dyed blond. They’ll also need to analyze, what difference, if any, is there if someone drinks bottled water, or has a daily glass of say Australian wine.

Isotopic signals from other chemicals — carbon and nitrogen — reveal information about a person’s diet and health.

“Everything we consume goes into making our body tissue, including our hair,” says Chartrand. “It is very true that you are what you eat.”

Saturday, January 21, 2012

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1118732--hair-database-will-help-forensic-investigators-identify-bodies

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No coherent mechanism used to identify crash victims bodies - 6/7/2010

MANGALORE: Twelve of the 158 passengers of the Air India Express flight killed in the May 22 crash here had to be buried in unmarked graves.

According to the district administration, the 12 bodies could not be identified because of a mix-up. Some families took away the bodies that did not belong to them in the confusion that prevailed after the crash. The body of Mohammed Zubair Ziad (4) was taken away by a family that believed that it was the body of an adult.

Tales of woe

Narrating a similar incident, Vidya Dinker, an activist who was involved in the relief operations, said: One family had identified their kin and filled the claims form at the Wenlock Hospital. They then moved to another hospital to look for other relatives. By the time they came back, somebody else had taken the body. There was no coherent mechanism to identify the bodies, and some junior policemen were handling the process. Whereas, a senior police officer was managing traffic, she claimed.

Disaster Victim Identification guidelines issued by the Interpol were not adhered to immediately. Guidelines

Despite the Interpol's warning that visual identification is notoriously unreliable and should be avoided at all costs, 136 of the 158 bodies were handed over on this basis alone.

The Interpol, instead, recommends the use of medical and forensic tests.

According to a senior district official, the Interpol's guidelines were referred to 10 days after the crash.

No alternative

Inspector-General of Police Gopal B. Hosur said that there was no other alternative. All the bodies could not have been identified by DNA tests. There was no way we could have waited for the DNA tests. Keeping so many bodies in our possession for so long could have created a law and order nightmare, he said.

District Health Officer H. Jagannath said as the districtรข€™s storage facilities were woefully inadequate, the bodies would have started decomposing.

Better management

Chief Fire Officer H.S. Varadarajan said that some of the bodies could not be identified because they were robbed of jewellery by some of those who posed as rescue workers at the crash site. The police should have cordoned off the area and allowed only fire tenders to do their job, he said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police S. Girish, who was in-charge of the crash site, said: There were only around 10 firemen and public support was necessary.

Several places

Dr. Jagannath said that a major reason for the mix-up was that all the bodies were not taken to one place for identification. Several bodies were taken to private medical colleges.

According to Mr. Varadarajan, there was nobody at the crash site to direct the ambulances carrying the bodies to the right place.

Mistake

By the time the district administration realised its mistake and ordered that all the bodies should be shifted to the Wenlock Hospital, 28 bodies had been taken away, District Medical Officer B. Saroja said.

http://www.sfxkutam.com/news_index_arch1.asp?offset=1120

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Woman's body found on cruise ship

Divers have found a woman's body in a submerged section of the grounded Costa Concordia, raising the death toll in the cruise liner tragedy to at least 12.

Italian Coast Guard Commander Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press that the body, wearing a life jacket, was found in a narrow corridor near an evacuation staging point at the rear of the ship.

The body was taken to Giglio, the Tuscan island where the vessel hit a reef and ran aground on January 14.

Twenty people are still missing.

Cmdr Nicastro said the woman's body was found during a particularly risky search.

"The corridor was very narrow, and the divers' lines risked snagging" on objects in the passageway, he said.

To help the coast guard divers get into the area, Italian navy divers had preceded them, setting off charges to blast holes for easier entrance and exit, he added.

The woman's nationality and identity were not immediately known.

Before the body was found, 21 people were listed as missing, one of them a Peruvian woman crew member, the others passengers.

Three bodies were found in the water near the ship in the first hours after the accident. Since then the other victims have all been found inside the Concordia, apparently unable to get off the ship during a chaotic evacuation via lifeboats and later by helicopters. Some survivors jumped off and swam to safety.

The Concordia hit a reef and ran aground a week ago, while passengers dined, about two hours after the ship had set sail from the port of Civitavecchia on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Cruise company Costa Crociere has said the captain had deviated without permission from the vessel's course in an apparent manoeuvre to sail close to Giglio to impress passengers.

Search and rescue efforts for survivors and bodies have meant that an operation to remove heavy fuel from the Concordia's tanks has not yet begun, although specialised equipment has been standing by for days.

Today, light fuel, apparently from machinery on board the capsized Costa Concordia, was detected near the ship.

But Cmdr Nicastro said there was no indication that any of the nearly 500,000 gallons (2,200 metric tons) of heavy fuel oil has leaked from the ship's double-bottomed tanks.

He said the leaked substance appears to be diesel, which is used to fuel rescue boats and dinghies and as a lubricant for ship machinery.

There are 185 tons of diesel and lubricants on board the crippled vessel, which is lying on its side just outside Giglio's port.

Cmdr Nicastro described the light fuel's presence in the sea as "very light, very superficial" and appearing to be under control.

Although attention has been concentrated on the heavy fuel oil in the tanks, "we must not forget that on that ship there are oils, solvents, detergents, everything that a city of 4,000 people needs", Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, told reporters in Giglio.

Mr Gabrielli, who is leading rescue, search and anti-pollution efforts for the Concordia, was referring to the roughly 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew who were on board the cruise liner when it ran into the reef, and then, with sea water rushing into a 230ft (70m) gash in its hull, listed and finally fell on to its side.

Considering all the substances on board the Concordia, "contamination of the environment... already occurred" when the ship capsized, Mr Gabrielli told a news conference.

Vessels equipped with machinery to suck out the light fuel oil were in the area, officials told Italian TV.

Earlier today, crews removed oil-absorbing booms used to prevent environmental damage in case of a leak. Originally white, the booms were greyish.

Divers resumed their search of the wreckage today after data indicated that the ship had stabilised in the sea.

Italian news reports said divers were also trying to locate the captain's safe, in case it might contain documentation useful to the criminal probe.

The Italian captain of Concordia, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest for investigation of alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all were evacuated.

He insists he helped co-ordinate the evacuation from Giglio's docks after leaving the ship when the Concordia lurched to one side.

The search was suspended yesterday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears that it could roll off a rocky ledge and plunge deeper into the sea.

An abrupt shift could also cause a leak in the Concordia's fuel tanks, polluting the pristine waters around Giglio, part of a seven-island Tuscan archipelago.

AP - SATURDAY 21 JANUARY 2012

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/womans-body-found-on-cruise-ship-6292724.html
AP - SATURDAY 21 JANUARY 2012

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