Costa Concordia: Our Summary

The 114,500 GT cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground last night at around 22:30 local time off the coast of the Italian Isola del Giglio.

The ship was carrying 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew bound for Savona as part of a regular weekly cruise.

Accounts of what actually happened vary and it is likely to take some time before a definitive sequence of events can be pieced together, however preliminary reports suggest that the ship experienced an electrical fault, and soon after hit an object which caused severe damage below the waterline on the port side.

The ship was then brought closer to the island, and the evacuation was begun. Two passengers and one crewmember are confirmed dead, while 40 have not yet been accounted for. Divers have begun a search of the ship, though this has been put on hold until the morning.

The captain has been arrested and looks set to be charged with manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship. Before his arrest, he stated that the object was not charted, though questions have been raised as to why the ship was so close to land.

While we like to have up-to-date news here on OfficerCadet.com, we can't neccesarily provide a thorough and comprehensive news service, so we've included some links to major news outlets' coverage of this incident.

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Further reading

BBC News
gCaptain
The Telegraph
The Guardian
Costa Cruises Press Statements

Images of Costa Concordia by Rvongher, licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 licence.