TODAY's Natalie Morales talks with the Ananias family, who were among the last to leave the grounded Costa Concordia, as they describe the chaos of the accident. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services
Story updated at 12 p.m. ET: While the hunt continues for missing passengers, including an American couple from Minnesota, Italian authorities have declared a state of emergency in a bid to prevent an environmental disaster. The country's environment minister says liquid has started to emerge from the stricken Costa Concordia, but it is not known whether the substance is the vessel's 500,000 gallons of fuel. Protective barriers are being put in place to contain a potential fuel leak, Reuters reports.
Story updated at 11:45 a.m. ET: The total cost to insurers could be up to $1 billion, depending on liability claims, Joy Ferneyhough, an insurance analyst at Espirito Santo Investment Bank in London, told Bloomberg. That figure would?exceed the financial loss from the Exxon Valdez disaster. Lloyds of London confirmed it was the underwriter for XL Group, one of a number of firms sharing the $512 million insurance burden of the ship itself. Other insurers, including Standard Club, could be liable for any compensation payouts. XL Group told msnbc.com it would not be commenting, while Standard Club could not be reached on Monday night.
Story updated at 10:50 a.m. ET:?Among those still missing in the Italian cruise ship disaster are an American couple from Minnesota. Family members issued a statement Monday confirming that Barbara and Jerry Heil of White Bear Lake, a suburb of St. Paul, are the two Americans missing. A family spokesman gave the statement to The Associated Press outside the home of Aaron Heil, a son of the couple, in Albertville, a Minneapolis suburb. Sarah Heil, a daughter of the couple, told WBBM radio in Chicago that her retired parents were on a 16-day trip.
Story updated at 10:45 a.m. ET: Rescue divers have resumed their search of the stricken vessel, after they were earlier evacuated from the site due to safety concerns.
Story updated at 6:03 a.m. ET: NBC News is reporting all rescue divers have been evacuated from the Costa Concordia. NBC's Laura Saravia in Porto Santo Stefano, Italy said the ship is rocking slightly due to choppy seas. "The movement is affecting divers working on rescue efforts inside, and they have been evacuated as a precaution. Rescue operations are suspended at this moment," Saravia said.
"There was a slippage of 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) vertically and 1.5 centimeters (0.6 inches) horizontally," firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari told Reuters. "We evacuated immediately. This is something we have been worried about. Operations are suspended. We will have to monitor the stability of the ship and we don't know when we will resume operations," he said. Fears have been expressed that the ship's 500,000 gallons of fuel may begin to leak into the pristine waters around the island of Giglio.
Story updated at 5:55 a.m. ET: The chief executive of Costa Crociere Pier Luigi Foschi blames "human error" on the part of the captain for the grounding of its cruise ship off Tuscany. He says the liner had passed all safety and technical tests in its 2011 evaluation. He said Costa ships have their routes programmed, and alarms go off when they deviate. "This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa," he said. He says the company's main concern was the safety and well-being of the passengers and crew, as well as to ensure fuel doesn't leak out from the upended hull.
The search for survivors continues from a capsized cruise ship off the western coast of Italy. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
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Story published at 2 a.m. ET: GIGLIO, Italy - Rescue workers searching the half-submerged hulk of a capsized Italian cruise ship found the body of an adult male just before dawn Monday, according to Italian television.
Sky News reported that the man was wearing a life jacket but that he was not found in a part of the ship that was submerged.
The news brought the death toll to six people with 60 injured more than 48 hours after the huge vessel capsized off Italy's west coast.
Fourteen people were still missing, including nine passengers, one of them a young child according to Italian media, and five crew members, according to Reuters.
Max Rossi / Reuters
The Costa Concordia ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of passengers as the ship began heavily listing.
Three people, a South Korean honeymoon couple and a member of the ship's crew, were rescued Sunday and police divers also recovered the bodies of two elderly men, still wearing emergency life jackets.
The captain of the 114,500 ton Costa Concordia was arrested Saturday, accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all of the more than 4,200 passengers and crew had been evacuated.
Francesco Schettino's employers, Costa Crociere, said in a statement Sunday that he appeared to have made "serious errors of judgment" and had brought the ship too close to shore, where it struck a rock that tore a large hole in the hull.
Divers were out in cold water, searching for survivors after the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports from the Italian coast.
The disaster occurred when the ship struck a rock as dinner was being served Friday night, triggering scenes of panic that witnesses said were like the film "Titanic" with passengers jostling to get on lifeboats and some leaping into the icy sea.
Passengers say there were unexplained delays in organizing the evacuation of those on board and this had resulted in chaos.
The vast hulk of the 950-foot-long ship, half submerged and lying on its side, loomed over the little port of Giglio, an island in a maritime nature reserve off the Tuscan coast.
Safety standards require cruise ships to have public address systems, enclosed lifeboats and evacuation chutes. NBC's Mark Potter has more.
A large gash could be seen in its hull but salvage experts said its fuel tanks did not appear to have been damaged, lessening the danger of an oil spill in the pristine waters.
Paolo Tronca, a local fire department official, said the search would go on "for 24 hours a day as long as we have to."
Investigators were working through evidence from the equivalent of the "black boxes" carried on aircraft to try to establish the precise sequence of events behind the disaster, which occurred in calm seas and clear weather.
'Serious human error'
Defense Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, a naval admiral, said the disaster did not appear to have been caused by natural or technical factors.
"In my estimation there was a serious human error, which had dramatic and tragic consequences," he told RAI state television.
Operators Costa Crociere said Schettino appeared to have failed to follow standard emergency procedures.
"The route followed by the ship was too close to the coast and it seems that his decisions on the management of the emergency did not follow the procedures of Costa Crociere," said the company.
Prosecutors accused Schettino, who has worked for Costa Crociere since 2002 and who was promoted to captain in 2006, of leaving the ship before the evacuation was complete.
Coastguard officials said he had refused to return to the vessel when asked to.
Schettino has told Italian television that the ship hit rocks that were not marked on maps and were not detected by navigation systems. He said the accident occurred some 300 meters from shore.
Costa Crociere expressed "deep sorrow" for the disaster.
It said all crew had been properly trained in safety procedures and that the ship was fully equipped with life jackets, medical supplies and other safety equipment.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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