Italy's San Giorgio vessel has
recovered an 11th body from the wreck of a ferry that caught
fire Sunday, and has reached the southern port city of Brindisi
with 200 survivors on board, the Navy said Tuesday.
The deadly fire aboard the ferry Norman Atlantic forced
the evacuation of 427 people and claimed 11 lives, including
those of three Neapolitan truck drivers.
The names of the three Neapolitan drivers who appeared to
be among the missing in the diaster are Carmine Balsano,
Giovanni Rinaldi, and Michele Riccardo.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Bari said they were seizing
private phones from the Norman Atlantic as part of their probe
into the disaster.
That includes investigating allegations of homicide and
causing a shipwreck against the captain and owner of the
multi-deck car ferry that caught fire early Sunday.
Prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe of Bari said Tuesday that he has
received permission from authorities to have the wreck of the
Norman Atlantic ferry towed to Brindisi as part of his
investigation.
A Georgian Orthodox cleric was on the Norman Atlantic and
has not been heard from since the disaster, Georgian media
reported Tuesday. The news was relayed by Sismografo, a Vatican
information blog.
Father Ilia Kartozia, the superior of Saint David
Agmashenebeli Georgian Orthodox Monastery in the city of
Mtskheta in Georgia, is reportedly among the missing.
Also on Tuesday, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said during a
visit to Albania that "the judiciary" must determine the causes
of the disaster.
The premier went on to praise the "heroism" of the rescuers
who helped save 427 people in difficult conditions, preventing
what he said could have been a "massacre".
Italian authorities say it is difficult to pin down precise
numbers of the missing because not everyone who reserved a place
on the ferry, which was travelling to Italy from Greece, showed
up. Stowaways were also possible, they said.
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