12th body found in cruise ship disaster

GIGLIO, Italy, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Italian divers Saturday discovered the body of a woman wearing a life jacket aboard the capsized Costa Concordia, raising the death toll to 12, officials said.

The divers, who got into the ship through a hole opened in the stern, discovered the woman's body on the fourth deck at 1:30 p.m., Italy's ANSA news agency reported.

Coast Guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said the woman's body was found in a corridor near the rear of the ship, the BBC reported.

"The corridor was very narrow, and the divers' lines risked snagging'' on objects in the passageway, Nicastro said.

A week after the cruise ship ran aground and after hitting a rock in shallow waters off the Tuscan island Giglio Island, 20 people are still missing.

As relatives tossed flowers into the sea near the Costa Concordia, rescue workers said they would search the entire ship. But the BBC noted concerns the ship could slip off a ledge into deeper water.

Meanwhile, more than 100 passengers who were aboard the Italian cruise ship say they're joining a class-action lawsuit seeking more than $15 million.

Mitchell Proner, a lawyer with Proner & Proner, a U.S. law firm, said each of the passengers would seek at least $154,660, with some planning to seek 10 times that amount, from Costa Cruises, the BBC reported.

The passengers will seek compensation for medical care, loss of earnings and the psychological effects of the evacuation, Proner said.

The suit is to be filed in a Miami court next week by Proner's firm, along with another U.S. firm, both of which have joined forces with the Italian consumer association.

Costa Cruises, owned by the U.S.-based Carnival Group, has blamed the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, for the ship's running into a reef and partially capsizing, killing 11 people.

Costa Cruises Chairman Pier Luigi Foschi this week said the captain deviated from frequently traveled routes.

Schettino, 57, is under house arrest, accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated. Prosecutors he was sailing too close to Giglio on an unauthorized course to perform a "salute" --- a greeting to islanders.

Costa Cruises, which accused the captain of trying to cover up the accident, said it has sent letters to passengers asking them to provide their expenses relating to the accident.

Proner said a civil claim would be filed against Schettino in Italy but said the blame spread beyond the captain.

"It's easy to say this captain acted alone," Proner said. "There are indications that there have been regular route deviations in the past. There should have been safeguards on board; where were the alarms?

"At the time of the Titanic, it might have been easy to say that radars didn't exist. Nowadays, with all the technology, it isn't. There had to be a failure in the system that allowed this to happen."

Italian Judge Valeria Montesarchio found Schettino had changed the ship's course, causing the disaster.

The ship had about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members aboard at the time of the Jan. 13 disaster.