Captain arrested in Italian cruise ship wreck

— -- Italian authorities have arrested the captain of a 3,200-passenger cruise ship that ran aground and tipped over late Friday, killing three people, injuring 20 and leaving up to 51 others still missing. Survivors, meanwhile, described a chaotic evacuation as plates and glasses crashed, and they crawled along upended hallways trying to reach safety.

CNN reports that the Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, was arrested late Saturday and is being investigated for manslaughter and abandoning ship. Authorities were looking at why the ship didn't hail a mayday during the accident near the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night. The ship is owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises, a mass-market line that caters to an international clientele and whose parent comnpany is the industry giant Carnival Corporation.

Three bodies — two French tourists and a crew member from Peru — were recovered from the sea after Costa Cruises' 6-year-old Costa Concordia ran aground near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot gash in its hull and sending in a rush of water.

The ANSA news agency, quoting the prefect's office in the province of Grosseto, said authorities have accounted for 4,165 of the 4,234 passengers and crew who had boarded the liner. Costa said about 1,000 Italian passengers were onboard, as well as more than 500 Germans, 250 North Americans, about 160 French and about 1,000 crew members.

By morning Saturday, the ship was lying virtually flat off Gigio's coast, its starboard side submerged in the water and the huge gash showing clearly on its upturned hull.

Passengers described a scene reminiscent of "Titanic" — which sank 100 years ago this April —complaining the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.

Under U.S. Coast Guard and the International Maritime Organization's Safety of Life at Sea regulations, cruise ships must conduct a safety drill within 24 hours of sailing with instructions on the use of life jackets and how and where to muster in an emergency. But passengers are not required to attend, and cruise lines vary in how quickly they hold the drill and how stringently they enforce passenger participation.

Helicopters plucked to safety some people who were trapped on the ship, some survivors were rescued by boats in the area, and witnesses said some people jumped from the ship into the dark, cold sea. Coast guard rescuers were continuing to search the ship for passengers.

Authorities still hadn't counted all the survivors by the time they reached mainland 12 hours later.

"It was so unorganized, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5 p.m." on Saturday, said Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, who had departed on the Mediterranean cruise on Friday. "We had joked 'What if something had happened today?'"

"Have you seen 'Titanic?' That's exactly what it was," said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents on the first of two cruises around the Mediterranean. They all bore dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells, trying to reach rescue boats.