[caption id="attachment_69259" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="The cruise ship Costa Concordia."]
An Irish couple who were onboard the stricken cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy have been speaking of their escape from the vessel.
Seamus and Carol Moore from Clonmel, County Tipperary were on the Costa Concordia when it ran aground on Friday (January 13) near the Tuscan island of Giglio on the first night of a Mediterranean cruise.
To date six bodies have been found on the vessel, which was carrying around 4,000 passengers. At press time 29 of those are still unaccounted for.
Ship owners Costa Cruises stated it crashed after Captain Francesco Schettino made an "unapproved, unauthorized" deviation in course by sailing too close to the island in order to show the ship to locals. The captain said rocks near to the island were not on his chart.
Mr. and Mrs. Moore, who had been on the cruise to celebrate a birthday, spent three hours on deck before being rescued.
"The staff did their best to advise us in terms of going out one by one but of course there was total panic, so there was a melee and people clambering over other people rather than just taking their time," said Mr. Moore.
"Eventually everybody got out. I had to climb out and get on top of the lifeboat and from there had to climb onto what was the lifeboat deck. At that stage the ship was listing very badly so we were advised to move to the front of the ship, which we did, lights were going on and off," he added.
"My wife thought that when the ship fully lifted, that was when we were going to lose our lives. I suppose that's when any panic we had dissolved and we said we would just make decisions as situations change and do what we can.
"When I managed to climb up onto the roof of the ship, the first thing I noticed was what a beautiful night it was. We decided to ring our friend who was caring for our youngest son, just to let him know what the situation was, not to say anything to the children initially and to tell the kids that we loved them and tell them what our arrangements were in terms of leaving stuff, just in case. I suppose we were being practical and we had a plan that if it seemed the ship was going to roll, we would take to the water. Thankfully that didn't happen."
Divers are continuing to search rooms in the ship, which remains lying on its side 200 meters off the island.
