TORONTO – A dozen Canadians who were on board a luxury cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy are safe.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Claude Rochon says based on information currently available, 12 Canadians were on the ship and they are well and accounted for.
Three bodies have been recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia with 4,234 people aboard ran aground hundreds of metres off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday.
Italian officials are matching names on the cruise ship’s list of passengers and crew with those of survivors and say the number of the unaccounted for has dropped to roughly 40.
Italian media report that the captain of a cruise liner has been detained while he is investigated on allegations of manslaughter and abandoning his ship.
Some passengers complained the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and later delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.
Among the Canadians who were on board is a couple from Ontario who say they were watching the magic show in the ship’s main theatre when they felt an initial lurch, as if from a severe steering manoeuvre, followed a few seconds later by a “shudder” that tipped trash cans over.
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Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ont., say that the subsequent listing of the ship made the theatre curtains seem like they were standing on their side.
“And then the magician disappeared,” Laurie Willits said, saying the magician left the stage and panicked audience members fled for their cabins as well.
Once at their life boat station, crew members directed passengers to go upstairs from the fourth floor deck; Alan Willits said he refused.
“I said ‘no this isn’t right.’ And I came out and I argued ‘When you get this boat stabilized, I’ll go up to the fifth floor then,’ ” he said. Eventually, his lifeboat was lowered down.
Back home, the couple’s children said their parents were tired and shaken, but otherwise fine and recuperating in a hotel in Rome.
Jory Willits, 20, said her parents had been on many cruises and Friday’s experience, while harrowing, isn’t likely to deter them from booking another trip.
“My dad’s an adventurist and last night… I said, ‘Just look at it like an adventure because you can’t do anything about it,’ ” she said.
She said her parents mentioned meeting at least one other Canadian on board, a man from Toronto.
On Saturday, the ship was lying virtually flat off Gigio’s coast, its starboard side submerged in the water and the huge gash showing clearly on its upturned hull.
The Costa Concordia was sailing on a cruise across the Mediterranean Sea, starting from Civitavecchia with scheduled calls to Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.
– With files from The Associated Press.
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