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Costa Concordia: two South Koreans saved. Hundreds of Asians involved in tragedy
Among them especially Filipino and Indian sailors. An Indian sailor among the missing. Hong Kong Chinese, Turks and Israelis saved. An Israeli couple filmed the incident and dramatic moments of rescue.
Giglio Island (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A pair of South Korean honeymooners were found alive and in good health, on the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruiser 36 hours after the accident that caused three confirmed dead and dozens missing. There were many Asians on board the cruise ship that now lies at 150 meters from the coast of the island of Giglio,.
Han Gi-Deok, a Korean teacher of 29 and his wife were trapped in a hallway first, and then in their waiting for help. "We slipped into the corridor as water began to rise in our cabin. We then shouted ourselves hoarse calling for help and blew the whistles attached to our life jackets, "said Han. The two were in cabin 303, two floors below the bridge. "They were in their cabin, and we can not understand why," said a spokesman for the rescue operations, adding that it took them 90 minutes to reach a point from which to take them from the ship by helicopter to the ground. "The cabins were checked one by one ... when we arrived at the stern we started calling, hoping that someone would respond, as happened," said one of the firefighters involved in the operation.
The crew of the Costa Concordia was composed largely of Filipinos and Indians. All 296 Filipinos on board "are safe, and waiting to be repatriated to Manila," said Philippine Foreign Ministry. Three of them were injured, in a non-serious way, during the incident. As for the Indians, 201 crew members were saved, one is among the missing, and family members have been notified, said Sunil Aggarwal, First Secretary of the Indian Embassy in Rome.
The Indian sailors were from Goa, Mumbai and Hyderabad. John Fernandes, a waiter of 28 from Goa, serving on the Concordia, recalls: "We were working in the restaurant it was the second sitting and suddenly there was a bang, and the plates and bottles started falling on the floor. After five minutes there was another bang, this time it was very big, and the lights went off. There was then an announcement of a technical problem, we were told everything was under control. People were scared, there was panic. Then the ship started to tilt. There was a general emergency alarm, seven short blasts then a long one which means you have to go to muster stations. After another 10 minutes there was an announcement to abandon ship. Some of my colleagues had no option but to jump they were on the tilted side, they saw the water was very close. They survived. "
There were 29 passengers on the Concorde from Hong Kong, all saved and on their way home, nine Turkish nationals are also in good health, and an Israeli couple Dor and David Rose, who shot a video, posted on Ynet.news.com illustrating some dramatic moments of the accident and rescue operations. "It was terrible," said Rose Dor.
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