Eight of the 12 people known to have died when the Costa Concordia cruise ship was wrecked last week have been identified, Italian officials say.
Four of the victims were French, one was Italian, one Hungarian, one Spanish and one German, they added.
Rescuers have resumed their search of parts of the ship above water, but choppy seas have prevented diving.
At least 20 people are still missing. Officials say some people may have been on board without registering.
The latest discovery was the body of a woman found on Saturday by divers on the fourth deck.
The head of the Civil Protection Agency, Franco Gabrielli, said the woman had not been identified but may be a Hungarian who was not on the embarkation list.
There could have been more "illegals" on board, he said, referring to people who had not registered to be on the ship.
There were known to be 4,200 people on the cruise ship, which struck a rock in shallow waters on 13 January off Tuscany's Giglio island.
The captain, Francesco Schettino, is being investigated for manslaughter, which he denies, and is under house arrest.
He is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated.
Prosecutors say the 57-year-old was sailing too close to Giglio on an unauthorised course in order to perform a "salute" - a greeting to islanders.
However, the Italian media have released a new recording in which Capt Schettino appears to say he will be the last to leave the ship.
Time pressures
Coastguard and navy divers resumed their search on Saturday, blasting their way into submerged areas of the vessel using explosives in an effort to find those unaccounted for.
Rescue officials said on Saturday they would not end the search until the whole ship had been examined, but it was suspended as weather conditions worsened.
On Sunday, civil protection officials said divers would not be allowed into the submerged part of the vessel until the sea was calmer. Rescuers continued their work above the water line.
Correspondents say they are under time pressure, amid fears the ship could slip off a ledge into deeper water with a risk of fuel tanks being ruptured.
One official says swift action needs to be taken to remove the fuel that is on board. An Italian naval vessel is on standby as a precaution should there be an oil leak.
22 January 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16670412
Compilation of international news items related to large-scale human identification: DVI, missing persons,unidentified bodies & mass graves
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Sunday, 22 January 2012
Official: possibility of unregistered passengers
GIGLIO, Italy (AP) — Unregistered passengers might have been aboard the stricken cruise liner that capsized off this Tuscan island, a top rescue official said Sunday, raising the possibility that the number of missing might be higher than the 20 previously announced.
Rescuers, meanwhile, resumed searching the above-water section of the Costa Concordia but choppy seas kept divers from exploring the submerged part, where officials have said there could be bodies.
"There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine" passengers aboard the ship, Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort, told reporters at a briefing on the island of Giglio, where the ship, with 4,200 people aboard rammed a reef and sliced open its hull on Jan. 13 before turning over on its side.
Gabrielli said that relatives of a Hungarian woman have told Italian authorities that she had telephoned them from aboard the ship and that they haven't heard from her since the accident. He said it was possible that a woman's body pulled from the wreckage by divers on Saturday might be that of the unregistered passenger.
But the identity of that body and of three male bodies, all badly decomposed after days in the water, have yet to be established. Gabrielli said they have identified the other 12 bodies: four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national.
Until Sunday, authorities had said that 20 people are still missing.
The search had been halted for several hours early Sunday, after instrument readings indicated that the Concordia has shifted a bit on its precarious perch on a seabed just outside Giglio's port. A few meters (yards) away, the sea bottom drops off suddenly, by some 20-30 meters (65-100 feet), and if the Concordia should abruptly roll off its ledge, rescuers could be trapped inside.
When instrument data indicated the vessel had stabilized again, rescuers went back in, but only explored the above-water section. Choppy seas kept divers from exploring the submerged part of the ship, including the restaurant and evacuation staging areas where survivors have indicated that people who did not make it into lifeboats during the chaotic evacuation could have remained.
Passengers were dining at a gala supper when the Concordia sailed close to Giglio and struck the reef, which is indicated on maritime and even tourist maps.
There are also fears that the Concordia's double-bottom fuel tanks could rupture in case of sudden shifting, spilling 2,200 metric tons (almost 500,000 million gallons) of heavy fuel into pristine sea around Giglio, which is part of a seven-island archipelago in some of the Mediterranean's most pristine waters and a prized fishing area.
But Gabrielli said pollutants found near the ship have been detergents and other substances, including chlorine, apparently from the wreck of the ship, which carried some 3,200 passengers and a crew of 1,000. Any fuel traces found were "compatible with what you find in a port," he said.
Ferries and cargo ships regularly call at Giglio's port.
Sophisticated oil-removal equipment has been standing by, waiting for the search-and-rescue operations to conclude before workers can start extracting the fuel in the tanks.
The Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest as prosecutors investigate him for suspected manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship while many were still aboard.
Operator Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Carnival Cruise Lines, has said that Capt. Schettino had deviated without permission from the vessel's route in an apparent maneuver to sail close to the island and impress passengers.
Schettino, despite audiotapes of his defying Coast Guard orders to scramble back aboard, has denied he abandoned ship while hundreds of passengers were desperately trying to get off the capsizing vessel. He has said he coordinated the rescue from aboard a lifeboat and then from the shore.
By FRANCES D'EMILIO - 22 January 2012
The Associated Press
Rescuers, meanwhile, resumed searching the above-water section of the Costa Concordia but choppy seas kept divers from exploring the submerged part, where officials have said there could be bodies.
"There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine" passengers aboard the ship, Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort, told reporters at a briefing on the island of Giglio, where the ship, with 4,200 people aboard rammed a reef and sliced open its hull on Jan. 13 before turning over on its side.
Gabrielli said that relatives of a Hungarian woman have told Italian authorities that she had telephoned them from aboard the ship and that they haven't heard from her since the accident. He said it was possible that a woman's body pulled from the wreckage by divers on Saturday might be that of the unregistered passenger.
But the identity of that body and of three male bodies, all badly decomposed after days in the water, have yet to be established. Gabrielli said they have identified the other 12 bodies: four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national.
Until Sunday, authorities had said that 20 people are still missing.
The search had been halted for several hours early Sunday, after instrument readings indicated that the Concordia has shifted a bit on its precarious perch on a seabed just outside Giglio's port. A few meters (yards) away, the sea bottom drops off suddenly, by some 20-30 meters (65-100 feet), and if the Concordia should abruptly roll off its ledge, rescuers could be trapped inside.
When instrument data indicated the vessel had stabilized again, rescuers went back in, but only explored the above-water section. Choppy seas kept divers from exploring the submerged part of the ship, including the restaurant and evacuation staging areas where survivors have indicated that people who did not make it into lifeboats during the chaotic evacuation could have remained.
Passengers were dining at a gala supper when the Concordia sailed close to Giglio and struck the reef, which is indicated on maritime and even tourist maps.
There are also fears that the Concordia's double-bottom fuel tanks could rupture in case of sudden shifting, spilling 2,200 metric tons (almost 500,000 million gallons) of heavy fuel into pristine sea around Giglio, which is part of a seven-island archipelago in some of the Mediterranean's most pristine waters and a prized fishing area.
But Gabrielli said pollutants found near the ship have been detergents and other substances, including chlorine, apparently from the wreck of the ship, which carried some 3,200 passengers and a crew of 1,000. Any fuel traces found were "compatible with what you find in a port," he said.
Ferries and cargo ships regularly call at Giglio's port.
Sophisticated oil-removal equipment has been standing by, waiting for the search-and-rescue operations to conclude before workers can start extracting the fuel in the tanks.
The Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest as prosecutors investigate him for suspected manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship while many were still aboard.
Operator Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Carnival Cruise Lines, has said that Capt. Schettino had deviated without permission from the vessel's route in an apparent maneuver to sail close to the island and impress passengers.
Schettino, despite audiotapes of his defying Coast Guard orders to scramble back aboard, has denied he abandoned ship while hundreds of passengers were desperately trying to get off the capsizing vessel. He has said he coordinated the rescue from aboard a lifeboat and then from the shore.
By FRANCES D'EMILIO - 22 January 2012
The Associated Press