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Costa Concordia cruise ship capsizes

Thirty people died and two others were declared missing after the Costa Concordia cruise ship capsized off the Italian coast.

The Carnival Corporation ship rammed into a reef off the Italian island of Giglio due to the captain's alleged malpractice.

Captain of the ship, Francesco Schettino, has since been put under house arrest, accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.

Captain Schettino abandoned ship while it was still sinking, leaving many passengers on board and going directly against maritime rules. The captain was found safe on the shore, having apparently 'fallen into a lifeboat'.

An Italian Coast Guard officer ordered the captain to get back on the ship to determine who still needed help but he refused.

Details from the night of the shipwreck emerged in the preliminary hearing of the crash. Testimonies from the witnesses said that the captain was talking on the phone and entertaining a female visitor while navigating off course in the coastal waters.

They stated that when Captain Schettino did finally notice the rocks, he steered the ship the wrong way – starboard instead of port. That caused the Costa Concordia to run aground on the rocks, ripping a 70 metre gash in the hull below the waterline.

In the call to the Italian coast guard, Captain Schettino ordered his crew to lie, saying there was only a blackout on board, and they did not need immediate assistance. This caused a delay of the rescue workers by as much as 45 minutes.

Captain Schettino told investigators that the reef wasn't marked on his navigational chart, even though the same reef could be seen on tourist maps. However, the ship's first officer, Ciro Ambrosia, said that the captain couldn't see the radar screens properly because he had forgotten his glasses.

The captain had asked Ambrosia numerous times to adjust the scale of the radar because he couldn't see it well.

At least 25 of the ship's 4200 passengers are suing the Costa Concordia in a $450 million class action lawsuit to recover damages.

New requirements are now being added to maritime law to help prevent another disaster like this from happening again. The Cruise Line International Association ruled that visits to the bridge are to be limited and the number of life jackets have to far exceed the number of passengers aboard.

The Costa Concordia is now lying in the waters of the Giglio bay as an effort is made to move the ship without further harming the ocean life and the island's vital tourist industry.

The US owned Titan Salvage has been approved by the Italian authorities to work on removing the ship in one piece, an effort that may take over a year.