Video shot by a passenger aboard the ill-fated Costa Concordia cruise liner showed a large number of people gathered at one of the ship's meeting points waiting for evacuation on Saturday (January 14), after the ship ran aground.
In the video crew members were seen giving instructions to passengers dressed in life vests and attempting to calm the crowd by telling them that the ship was right in front of Giglio island. The crew members were seen asking the passengers to carefully follow the safety instructions.
Officials believe the ship's captain Francesco Schettino had brought the 114,500-tonne vessel too close to the shore, where it struck the rock, tearing a large gash in the hull. He did not give an immediate order to abandon ship but made an attempted safety maneuver before realizing he had no choice but to evacuate as water poured in.
Passengers had just settled down to a relaxed dinner after leaving the port of Civitavecchia near Rome when the first shock was felt, launching them into a terrifying ordeal as their liner flipped over off the coast of Italy.
The ship was carrying mainly Italian passengers, but also British, Germans, French, Spanish, Americans and others. Many were elderly and some were in wheelchairs. It became more difficult to lower the lifeboats the more the ship listed.
Passengers have said they had been given little or no information in the immediate aftermath of the ship running aground. Two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were known to have died. There was confusion about the number of people still unaccounted for. The president of the Tuscan region said the number stood at 17 but other estimates were as high as 34.