Cruise Ship Costa Concordia: 29 Still Missing in Italian Disaster  

Italian coast guard officials said, on Monday, the number of people missing from the wreckage of the Costa Concordia has increased to 29.

Marco Brusco, a top official, said on a state-run television channel that four crew members and 25 passengers were still missing, following the Concordia's crashing into a reef of Italy's Tuscan coast.

An hour ago I received a report from the (local) Grosseto administration that 29 people remain unaccounted for, Brusco said. Earlier, coast guard officials said 16 people were missing.

According to comments by a German official, the missing are 10 Germans, six Italians, two French couples, two Americans and a Peruvian.

Only a glimmer of hope remains of finding any survivors, and that searches are continuing, Brusco added.

Six bodies have been recovered from the wreck, including one Italian, one Spanish, two French, a Peruvian and one unidentified victim. Out of the six, the two French passengers and a staff member (a Peruvian international) drowned after jumping into the water to escape.

Coast guard officials and rescuers continued their search on Monday but their work was interrupted because bad weather caused the ship to move, the BBC reported.

The conditions inside are disastrous. It's very difficult. The corridors are cluttered and it's hard for the divers to swim through, Rodolfo Raiteri, head of the coast guard's diving team, told AFP.

The owner of the ship - Pier Luigi Foschi - accused the captain of an unauthorized deviation in course and sailing the ship too close to the shore of a Tuscan island in order to show the ship to locals.

Francesco Schettino - the captain - was arrested a day after the ship capsized and is due to appear in court on Tuesday morning.