Rising death toll on burning ferry

(ANSA) - Rome, December 30 - 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.