Washington (CNN) -- In the wake of the deadly Costa Concordia cruise ship accident off the coast of Italy in January, the cruise industry is implementing new safety standards.

Cruise Lines International Association, the world's largest cruise non-profit organization representing 26 companies, announced Tuesday it is putting in place standards it says will "achieve concrete, practical and significant safety dividends in the shortest possible time."

Officials say each ship will now be required to provide additional adult life jackets in excess of the legal requirements within a ship's most-populated zone. This will ensure the number of life jackets carried by a cruise liner will exceed the actual number of passengers on board.

At least 30 people were killed and two others are missing and presumed dead after the Costa Concordia struck rocks and turned on its side January 13 off the Italian island of Giglio.

Some survivors said they returned to their rooms to get their life jackets a half hour after the accident and struggled to climb many levels in dim emergency lighting on the listing ship to reach lifeboats.

The industry also adopted a policy to "minimize unnecessary disruptions and distractions" on the bridge. The change will limit access to the bridge "to those with operational functions during any period of restricted maneuvering or when increased vigilance is required."

The captain of the Costa Concordia faces allegations of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck, abandoning ship and failing to report the accident. Some media outlets reported that Capt. Francesco Schettino had a woman with him on the bridge just before the accident.

Schettino has previously said managers of the cruise line instructed him to sail close to Giglio. He said the ship hit a rock not indicated on charts of the area.

A third safety policy adopted involves passage planning procedures, which is the complete description of a ship's movement from departure to arrival. The new standard will change what was simply guidance for years and make it a mandatory minimum requirement. All bridge team members will be briefed on the voyage "well in advance of its implementation" by a designated officer and approved by the master.

"As the Concordia incident demonstrates, there is no such thing as perfect safety," said Manfredi Lefebvre, chairman of the European Cruise Council. "We do strive for a perfect commitment to safety."

The remains of American and German couples who died when the Costa Concordia capsized near a Tuscan island have been identified, several weeks after the bodies were found in the wreck of the cruise ship, Italian authorities said Tuesday.

The Prefect's office from the Tuscan town of Grosseto, where the bodies were brought, also announced the identification of a fifth body, that of an Italian crewman from aboard the Italian luxury liner which struck a reef off the island of Giglio on Jan. 13 and capsized. Thirty-two people died, including two people whose bodies still haven't been found.

The two U.S. victims -- the only Americans who died in the accident -- were identified as Barbara and Gerald Heil of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Also identified were Christina Mathi Ganz and Norbert Josef Ganz of Muehlheim am Main of Germany, and Giuseppe Girolamo, the crew member. The German couple had just celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.

John Heil, a son of the U.S. couple, said the family was declining to say anything about the identification when contacted by phone by The Associated Press. The U.S. Embassy in Rome, citing privacy concerns, declined to discuss plans for the transport of the Heils' remains.

But the Embassy website posted a message of condolence.

"We are grateful for the skill and courage of the Italian search teams who made such an effort to first rescue and then recover remains of the victims," the message said. "The entire U.S. Embassy would like to once again extend its condolences to the Heil family and to the friends and families of all the victims of this tragedy."

Weather and sea conditions permitting, divers continue searching for the last missing passenger, an Italian woman, and an Indian crewman. Both are presumed dead.

The Italian captain of the Concordia is under house arrest in his home near Naples while prosecutors investigate him and other ship and cruise line officials. Capt. Francesco Schettino is being investigated for alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all the 4,200 passengers and crew aboard it were evacuated.

Prosecutors have said they suspect the captain deliberately steered his ship too close to Giglio island in a publicity stunt. The Concordia's hull was gashed by the rocky reef. Schettino insists the reef wasn't marked on the ship's navigational charts and denies that he abandoned ship, saying he continued to direct the evacuation.

In audio registrations between Schettino and Italian coast guard officials, the captain appears to repeatedly resist pleas to go back aboard the ship and help carry out the evacuation.

In the Heils' hometown, friends expressed relief to hear that the bodies of the couple have been identified. The couple were well known as active members of the local church.

Gerald Heil would visit local woman Diane Vorland, confined to a wheelchair, every Thursday to bring communion and pray. And he drove a local man, Denny Hardy, on errands after the man lost his driver's license.

Vorland said Tuesday that it's good news the Heils have been identified after so long, and that the news should give closure to the family.

Hardy said it's nice knowing that the Heils are now safely in the hands of God.

The salvage operation to move the capsized Costa Concordia away from the island of Giglio, where it ran aground three months ago, will begin next month.

Civil Protection official Fabrizio Curcio told reporters at a conference on the island today that he expected contracts to be signed by the end of April and the operation to begin in mid-May.

Sources close to the operation said two consortia were on the short list to carry out the salvage work. One was composed of Smit Salvage of the Netherlands and Italy's Neri and the other by Titan Salvage of the United States and Micoperi of Greece.

The ship, owned by Carnival Corporation & Plc, capsized off the Tuscan island after hitting rocks on January 13th. At least 30 people died and two are still unaccounted for.

The operation to pump more than 2,300 metric tons (2535.3 tons) of fuel out of the vessel was completed last month.

Prosecutors have accused the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino of causing the disaster by bringing the multi-storey liner, which was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew, too close to the shore.

Eight other officers and executives of the ship's owner, Costa Cruises, are also under investigation.

It is a week for remembering maritime disasters, writes Sally Walmsley. Tuesday marked the day doomed ship the Titanic set sail from the docks of Southampton a century ago, so it was apt that Channel Four chose this week to screen their astonishing documentary on the fate of the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off Italy, just three short months ago, on Janury 13.

A total of 32 people of the 4,252 aboard the Costa Concordia lost their lives. And in last night’s documentary – The Sinking of the Concordia: Caught on Camera – Channel 4 pieced together footage taken by passengers on board to give a terrifying overview of what happened during its last hours.

As the narrator reminded us at the at the start of the hour-long documentary: “There is no director, no camera crew, no reconstructions.

“Just home videos and the voices of the survivors . . . What follows is the anatomy of a disaster.”

The programme started with shots of happy children running on deck, holiday-makers enjoying fitness classes, stage shows, a gala night and bingo – at which point the grim inevitability of what was about to happen hit you smack in the face.

And as you look around the smiling faces in the crowd shots you are already starting to think ‘Did they get out alive?’

As it became evident something was seriously wrong, the feeling of terror building among the passengers was evident, to the point where the fear was palpable.

Footage from the bridge showed all hell breaking loose – and revealed that passengers had already decided to make their way to the lifeboats before the captain made the call to abandon ship.

To say Captain Francesco Schettino did now come out of this documentray well is the understatement of the century.

Eyewitness accounts taken down after the event are one thing – the evidence included in this programme about the behaviour of the captain just staggering.

We heard the cheery PA system that there had been a’ blackout’ . . .  ‘electrical fault’ . . .  ‘engineers working to resolve the problem’, despite the fact the ship had run aground.

Some of the scenes with the strongest impact showed footage from the search and rescue helicopter – and included the furious exchange between Captain Schettino and the coastguard, who ordered the captain back onto the ship, after he and his officers abandoned the passengers to their fate, warning him: “I am going to make you pay for this.”

The decision to screen the vast majority of the footage without any voiceovers was a brave, but inspired move This was never more effective as during the scenes which showed one of the lifeboats which had got stuck, filled with passengers and hanging from the side of the ship. This, more than anything brought it home to the viewer quite how on their own these people were.

Like them, you had no idea what was happening, or how it was going to end.

You – like them – were in the pitch black of the lifeboat. You could hear people screaming all around – people who thought they were going to die.

It was like something from a horror movie.

The sight of a body being brought off one of the boats, the flickering lights shone by people still trapped in the sinking ship desperately trying to attract help.

They were all poignant moments. As one of the passengers said from the shore: “It’s like a scene from Titanic”.

This programme brought home the reality of the disaster for the people on board, more than any sterile TV report could do.

The people who took this footage – even when their own lives and those of their loved ones were in danger – should be commended. As should those who spent the many, many hours it must have taken to edit this footage together.

This was a sensitive and painstakingly put together record of a terrible human tragedy.

Italy’s high court (known as the Court of Cassation) ruled on Tuesday that the Captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, must remain under house arrest while he is investigated for possible criminal charges.  He has already been under house arrest since January.

Schettino is facing charges in the aftermath of the Costa Concordia wreck that include manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship, failing to report an accident to the coast guard and destroying a natural habitat.

Prosecutors were pushing for the captain to go behind bars during the course of investigation, but the defense was able to convince Itay’s Supreme Court of 5 judges that he should have his freedom and stay under house arrest.

Schettino’s lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, said in a statement ahead of the ruling that his client had “full trust and respect in the judges and that he awaits the Supreme Court’s decision with serenity.”

The court was also expected to rule on the admissibility of the captain’s phone intercepts at the police station following his detention right after the shipwreck.

No one has yet been officially charged with any crimes, but seven other officers are under investigation along with the captain over allegations including manslaughter, shipwreck and failure to report the accident, the prosecutor said.

Schettino’s defense so far has been that the rock that the ship struck was not indicated on any of his charts, and that when the ship did hit the rock it was the Costa cruise line that instructed him to sail close to the island.

Some are saying that the move to sail the ship close to the shore saved lives as it kept the ship from sinking all the way below the waters while others have stated that this only expedited the listing of the vessel.

Italy’s civil protection agency stated Tuesday that 30 bodies had been recovered from the wreck of the Costa Concordia, and just 25 have been identified with 5 still in process of identification. Two people still remain missing.

WASHINGTON - In the wake of the sinking of the Costa Concordia that killed 25 people in January, a Senate panel Thursday will look into safety, tax and environmental laws governing a cruise ship industry that carried 11 million North Americans last year.

"I believe we must ask why an industry that earns billions pays almost no corporate income tax," says Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the transportation committee having the hearing. "The environmental practices of the industry are unconscionable."

The industry is a popular one, and it’s thrived through down economic times. In 2010, it generated nearly $38 billion in economic activity and 330,000 jobs in the USA, according to the Cruise Lines International Association.

The disaster Jan. 13 has put the industry under the microscope. Thursday’s hearing is the second on Capitol Hill in as many days on the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio.

Another ship, the Costa Allegra, is disabled near the Seychelles and will be towed to port Thursday - three days after it lost power and began drifting in the Indian Ocean with more than 1,000 people aboard. The Costa Concordia and the Costa Allegra are operated by Costa Crociere of Genoa, Italy, which is owned by the Florida-based Carnival.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, announced plans for a roundtable with the Coast Guard to develop new laws for cruise lines.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the cruise industry say they’re eager to learn lessons from the Concordia investigation, which is likely to take a year.

Vice Adm. Brian Salerno, deputy commandant for operations, told the House subcommittee on maritime transportation that the Coast Guard is interviewing U.S. passengers from the ship to better understand what happened.

On Jan. 27, the industry began reviewing safety procedures operations for possible improvements, according to Christine Duffy, president of the Cruise Lines International Association.

One of the industry’s first decisions, on Feb. 9, was to voluntarily begin safety briefings for passengers when they board a ship, rather than sometime during the first 24 hours of a cruise, as is current law.

Duffy and several lawmakers stressed the relative safety of cruises. From 2002 through 2011 - before the Concordia grounding - cruise ships had 28 deaths blamed on operations, Duffy said. Six out of 153 million passengers died during that period, she said.

"Safety is this industry’s No. 1 priority," Duffy said. "As an industry, we are wholly committed to examining what happened and to identifying lessons that can be learned."

Lawmakers repeatedly blamed Concordia’s Capt. Francesco Schettino, who has acknowledged steering the ship too close to shore and leaving the ship before all passengers were evacuated.

"We shouldn’t vilify the entire industry because of the reckless actions of one rogue employee," said Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla.

Divya and Sameer Sharma, a Massachusetts couple who were celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary aboard the Concordia, riveted lawmakers with their description of a crew that refused to tell them the ship had struck a reef or to explain how to evacuate.

"We felt very betrayed, very much lied to," Sameer Sharma said. "They were not honest with us at any given point."

The footage was released by an Italian television channel two days after a separate piece of film showing the captain of the ship, Francesco Schettino, apparently dithering on the bridge in the moments after the 950ft-long luxury liner struck rocks close to the island's shore.

The new video shows the chaos on board as the 4,200 passengers and crew are told to put on their life jackets and prepare to abandon ship, with at least one man ending up in the water while passengers shout in alarm as lifeboats get stuck and fail to deploy properly.

The shaky footage shows passengers and crew standing around in their brightly-coloured life jackets, apparently unsure what to do.

Crew members carrying a passenger on a stretcher push through the crowds as the evacuation gets under way.

Some crew members apparently fail to grasp the gravity of the situation and laugh and joke in front of the camera.

"This is the story of the Costa Concordia," says one young crewman, while another blows a kiss and says "I love you, mamma."

A third looks more serious and says "We'll make it".

Capt Schettino has been accused of procrastinating for around 76 minutes before giving the order to abandon the ship.

Members of his crew have said that there might not have been any deaths had he ordered the vessel to be evacuated earlier. The death toll from the accident is 32 – there are 17 confirmed dead, with another 15 people still missing.

The skipper is under house arrest at his home near Naples and faces charges of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship.

A 25-year-old Moldovan woman who had dinner with Capt Schettino has confirmed to prosecutors that he invited her up onto the bridge in the minutes before the impact, in order to witness the ship perform a 'salute' of Giglio by sailing close to the island with its sirens sounding and its decks lit up.

Domnica Cemortan said she felt awkward being on the bridge with the captain and his officers, but that Capt Schettino had insisted she stay.

She told prosecutors in Grosseto, Tuscany, where the investigation is based, that after the impact she went down to the captain's cabin to collect jackets for him and for her, and to retrieve his laptop.

She managed to get into a life boat and reached Giglio's tiny port at around 12.30am or 1am on the morning of Jan 14.

The passenger rep and former dancer reportedly insisted to prosecutors that the captain drank only mineral water at dinner, contradicting testimony from passengers who said they saw the couple sharing a decanter of wine.

Capt Schettino's wife continued to defend his conduct and said the two pieces of video showed that he had done his utmost to save lives.

Fabiola Russo said her husband had "wept with joy" when he saw the footage because he ft that it showed he had behaved correctly in handling the disaster.

"Thanks to the manoeuvre he carried out, he saved the lives of 4,200 people," she told Corriere della Sera newspaper. She denied that he was in a "panic", insisting that he had coordinated the entire operation calmly and professionally.

Asked whether she had discussed the nature of her husband's relationship with Miss Cemortan, she declined to answer.

The new footage was apparently taken by the same unidentified person who took the first piece of video, broadcast by TG5 on Friday.

It showed apparent disarray and confusion among officers on the bridge. At one point an officer told the captain that passengers were already getting into the lifeboats, before the order to abandon ship had been given, to which he appeared to reply, in Neapolitan dialect, "Whatever".

Both pieces of film are being studied by investigators, amid reports that the chief prosecutor, Francesco Verusio, wants officers on the bridge to explain why none of them mentioned the existence of the footage.

A mass was held in Rome today for the victims of the disaster.

The ceremony, in the Basilica of Santa Maria of the Angels and Martyrs, was led by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the president of the Italian Bishops' Conference, and attended by Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's president.

Italian divers have ended their search on the wreck of the Costa Concordia, in which 32 people are feared to have died.

"We have definitively stopped the underwater search inside the ship," said Luca Cari, fire brigade spokesman on the island of Giglio, explaining that conditions inside the giant half-submerged liner were becoming too risky.

"The conditions are no longer acceptable," he said.

The civil protection agency, which has been overseeing rescue efforts following the 13 January disaster, said in a statement it had contacted the families of the missing and foreign embassies involved to explain its decision.

It added that rescuers would continue to inspect the above-water part of the liner and use specialist equipment to check for bodies on the sea bed around the wreck.

The 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia with more than 4,200 people aboard ran aground on rocks off Giglio and rolled on to its side as passengers were settling down to dinner shortly after the start of a Mediterranean cruise.

Divers have recovered 17 bodies from the sea and the wreck and 15 people remain missing.

The search has had to be suspended several times due to choppy seas and small movements of the wreck, which led to concerns that the massive ship could slip off the rocky shelf it is resting on and sink entirely.

Divers have described tricky conditions inside the ship, with corridors cluttered with furniture and dirty water. Divers have been limited to a maximum of 50 minutes, making it difficult to penetrate far into the vessel.

A spokeswoman for the civil protection agency said the last unidentified body was "very probably" that of a German woman, but added that the formal identification had not yet been made.

Meanwhile, Pier Luigi Foschi, the chief executive of operator Costa Crociere, part of US-based giant Carnival Corp, told a Senate committee hearing that fuel pumping from the ship would start within the next 24 hours.

"We believe that the wreck can no longer be put in use," he said of the ship, which cost €450m to build and was launched in 2006.

Environmentalists fear that the 2,380 tons of heavy fuel oil in the Costa Concordia's tanks could begin leaking out into the area's pristine waters.

"The first operation will be to empty the ship, the second to clean up the wreck and the third to move the ship, which will be a truly enormous operation that has never been done before," Mr Foschi told senators.

Island residents concerned about the impact on tourism have called for the ship to be removed quickly and have launched a protest after the civil protection agency said it would take up to a year.

Captain Francesco Schettino and first officer Ciro Ambrosio are accused of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Fabiola Russo defended her husband as the death toll from the disaster rose to 16 more than 10 days after the luxury liner smashed into the Tuscan island of Giglio. At least 17 passengers and crew were still unaccounted for.

Ms Russo, 48, said her husband, Capt Francesco Schettino, 52, had been unfairly made a scapegoat for the debacle, which forced the chaotic night-time evacuation of the ship's 4,200 passengers and crew.

The commander, who has been branded "Captain Coward" by the Italian press, is under house arrest at the home he shares with his wife and 17-year-old daughter in Meta di Sorrento near Naples.

"My husband is at the centre of an unprecedented global media storm," Ms Rossi told Oggi (Today), an Italian weekly magazine.

"I cannot think of any other naval or air tragedy in which the responsible party was treated with such violence ... This is a manhunt, people are looking for a scapegoat, a monster. It's shameful."

However, she admitted Capt Schettino had once been fined for steering too close to the coast in the past.

"Our shared passion is canoeing – to paddle together you have to be in symphony, which is what Francesco and I are," she said. "But we got fined once, because we took a little motorboat too close to the coast."

She said her husband had been unfairly branded a coward after it emerged that he took to a life boat during the drama, leaving hundreds of terrified passengers and crew members still aboard the stricken liner.

Audio recordings emerged in which a furious Coast Guard official ordered him to "get back on board, for ----'s sake" and take command of the situation – an order he apparently ignored.

But his wife claimed he was "determined, firm and lucid. He is able to analyse situations, to understand and manage them".

Capt Schettino was regarded as "a maestro" by his crew, his wife said.

Meanwhile the chief prosecutor overseeing the investigation said failings in safety procedures meant that Genoa-based Costa Cruises should also be investigated.

Beniamino Deidda, the chief prosecutor of Tuscany, pointed to "life boats that could not be lowered, crew that did not know what to do, inadequate preparation for emergencies and absurd orders such as the one for passengers to return to their cabins.

"For now, attention is concentrated on the fault of the captain, who showed himself to be tragically inadequate. But who chose the captain? Not all the shortcomings in safety procedures can be blamed on the captain's conduct."

The operation to remove half a million gallons of oil and diesel out of the crippled ship finally got under way, with a barge loaded with drills and pipes mooring alongside the Concordia.

Divers will spend the first part of the operation inspecting the hull, with the removal of the fuel expected to start on Satu and to take at least a month.

As Italian navy divers blasted more holes in the hull to aid the continuing search for bodies, chairs, tables and passengers' luggage floated out into the sea – just some of the tens of thousands of objects trapped inside the huge vessel.

THE captain of the stricken Costa Concordia liner told a friend shortly after the disaster that he sailed too close to shore because a manager from the cruise company pressured him to do so, Italian media reported.

Francesco Schettino told a friend he was following the advice of a manager about what route to take, saying "pass through there, pass through there,'' media reported, quoting a recording of the call police secretly made the day after the January 13 shipwreck that killed at least 16 people.

"In my place, another would not have been so ready to pass there, but they got to me with their 'Pass through there, pass through there','' Schettino said.

"The rocks were there, but the instruments I had weren't showing them, so I went through,'' he said.

Schettino then reportedly said he thought he was about 450 metres (0.28 nautical miles) away, but the ship hit a rock.

"So, here we are and it's me who's paying for everything,'' he said.

The luxury line capsized off the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio with more than 4000 people on board. Sixteen people are still unaccounted for.

Schettino and first officer Ciro Ambrosio so far are the only two from the ship to face charges, including negligent homicide.

Schettino has been under house arrest since January 17.

The tragic sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship last week is leaving a line of worried passengers in its wake. Betty Westbrook is among them. The retiree from Allen, Texas, called me hours after the ship sank off the Italian coast, hoping that I could help her. "What are my chances for a refund?" she asked

Westbrook believes that had she been aboard the cruise liner, she might have been a casualty. "I'm 82, and I couldn't have made it off the ship without help," she says. Reading about the Concordia crew's alleged unpreparedness for disaster has made her nervous about her February cruise to the Bahamas on the Carnival Magic.

The Concordia went down Jan. 13 after running aground near the island of Giglio. The death toll today stands at 15. The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, is reported to have maneuvered the ship too close to a fishing village. He was arrested following the disaster and is currently facing criminal charges for abandoning ship and manslaughter.

Costa Cruises is owned by Miami-based Carnival, the world's largest cruise line operator, and not surprisingly, some passengers are now having second thoughts about their floating vacation. A nonscientific online survey conducted soon after the disaster by the opinion website SodaHead.com found that one-quarter of those polled were "less likely" to book a cruise after the Costa disaster.

Westbrook told me that when she heard about Carnival's handling of the Concordia sinking, she phoned her travel agency immediately to find out whether she could cancel her cruise.

The answer to her question is: No refunds -- at least not for her.

"We're not making any changes to our refund policy," said Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen. If she canceled, Westbrook would lose her deposit or 75 percent of the total cruise fare, whichever is greater. (Unfortunately, Carnival's refund policy is similar to that of most other major cruise lines.)

Costa, however, is offering passengers scheduled to sail on the Concordia through Feb. 25 their money back and a 30 percent cruise credit.

Meanwhile, the cruise line says it is covering the costs of lodging and return transportation for the Concordia's survivors, as well as offering counseling to the passengers and their families "as needed." It is also refunding all voyage costs, including onboard expenses.

In a statement issued just after the incident, Costa and its corporate parent sought to assure passengers such as Westbrook that its vessels are safe. "Costa is committed to ensuring that no such incident ever occurs again," it said. "Our number-one priority is always the safety and security of our guests and crew, and we comply with all safety regulations."

But passengers have some cause for concern, particularly when it comes to Costa, says Miami-based maritime lawyer Jim Walker. "In the last two years, Costa has had three significant incidents where crew members have been killed and passengers have been injured," he says.

On Feb. 26, 2010, the Costa Europa rammed into a pier in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, as it was trying to dock in rough weather. Three crew members were killed and one was injured, along with three passengers. And on Oct. 18, 2010, the Costa Classica collided with a Belgian cargo ship near China's Yangtze River, injuring several passengers.

Costa's safety record isn't the only thing that should frighten passengers, say Walker and other legal experts. Also worrisome are the flimsy legal rights passengers have when they book a cruise, outlined in a legal document known as the ticket contract, which is available on the cruise line's website and is normally included with your ticket.

For passengers with future cruise plans, the contract delivers some bad news: If you want a refund, and you're within two weeks of departing on a European cruise, you're out of luck. (If it's anywhere between 44 and 15 days until your vacation, you can get half your money back.)

The contract is equally restrictive as it applies to the Concordia's survivors. The fine print limits the cruise line's liability to about $71,000 per passenger, requires that any claim against the company be filed within a year, restricts the filing venue to a court in Genoa,Italy, and applies Italian law to resolving the dispute.

For cruises from U.S. ports, Costa's contract limits the venue for filing lawsuits to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, effectively turning any lawsuit into a costly federal case. Other ticket language prevents smaller complaints from being brought together as class actions, further limiting passengers' access to justice, say legal experts.

Cruise line claims adjusters often send a series of letters to injured survivors, asking for more information. The time required for correspondence and documentation runs down the clock on any claims, according to David Deehl, an adjunct law professor at the University of Miami and the vice chairman of the American Bar Association's Admiralty and Maritime Law Committee.

"They're appearing to want to settle, asking for more and more information," he says. In fact, they're usually intent on paying the least they can under the law.

One place where cruise lines move quickly is in shoring up their own defense, Deehl notes. "They have their own civil defense lawyers who are often flown right to the ship to interview crew and passengers immediately, locking in their defense theories with sworn testimony," he told me.

If you're considering a cruise vacation, experts suggest reviewing the ticket contract before booking to know what rights you have. If you're uncomfortable with the terms, they recommend sticking to a land-based vacation.

Travel insurance might help the Concordia's survivors recover some of their lost property and pay for the expense of their interrupted vacation. But only the most expensive policy, known as "cancel for any reason" insurance, would have allowed a passenger such as Westbrook to get a refund. (And read the policy carefully -- some "cancel for any reason" policies offer only a percentage of your money back.)

Westbrook says her friends have advised her to stop worrying. After all, her vacation is taking place half a world away and on a different cruise line, even if it's owned by the same company. But she says it's difficult, although "it looks like I don't have much of a choice."

(Christopher Elliott is the author of "Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals" (Wiley). He's also the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and the co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for travelers. Read more tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at chris@elliott.org. Christopher Elliott receives a great deal of reader mail, and though he answers them as quickly as possible, your story may not be published for several months because of a backlog of cases.)

It's too bad the survivors had to wait until the Concordia sank before they discovered that, given stringent, industry-wide cruise line policies, they have few rights of legal redress. And too bad it took a maritime disaster of this magnitude to reveal to other cruise passengers that they have virtually the same problem, no matter where they're sailing or what cruise line they choose.

The latest victim of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster died much like the 12th victim found on Saturday, the USA Today reported.

Both women were found wearing lifejackets near an evacuation area of the cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy on Jan. 13.

With a 13th victim found today, previous reports would suggest the missing now numbers 19; however, the discovery comes as reports surfaced saying unregistered passengers may have been on aboard.

"There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine," said Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official leading the recovery, USA Today said.

According to CBS News, a Hungarian woman’s relatives approached authorities saying she called them from on board the ship, and she is still missing. That woman’s name didn’t appear on manifests, Gabrielli said.

Victim’s families also met today with Pierluigi Foschi, CEO of the ship’s operator, Costa Crociere.

"He came to see the families, all families,” said Alain Le Roy, the French ambassador to Italy. “He met the French family. He met the American family. I am sure he is meeting other families, mostly to express his compassion ... to say that Costa will do everything possible to find the people, to compensate families in any way."

The ship, carrying 4,200 people, collided with a reef that tore a hole in its hull and forced it on its side. Capt. Francesco Schettino is under house arrest facing charges of manslaughter, abandoning ship and making an un-authorized course change.

Did Captain Francesco Schettino abandon his sinking ship of his own accord, more than four hours before the evacuation was complete – or, by his own account, did he “trip and fall” into the lifeboat that saved him?

Whichever version you believe, when the Costa Concordia capsized off the Tuscan coast eight days ago, that time-honoured rule of the sea, “Women and children first”, did not seem uppermost in the mind of the man responsible for the disaster. Passengers reported “just complete and utter chaos”, and that no one from his crew seemed to know what they were doing. It is clear to me that panic had taken him over.

Almost all of us are capable of panic. What is harder to determine is exactly how we will react when it grips us.

Imagine being at home late one night, quite alone, and suddenly hearing a loud noise from your kitchen. In a fraction of a second, your heart beats wildly. You breathe faster, your mouth is suddenly dry, and you feel faint as the blood in your body is shunted into the muscles, to give the best chance of speedy escape.

Sudden stress has an immediate effect on the hypothalamus in your brain. It begins pumping out corticotrophin-releasing hormone, triggering a response from the body’s master gland, the pituitary. Within a few seconds, it sends messages in your blood to the adrenal glands. They start to produce the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, preparing your body for fight or flight.

But the first reaction may not be to run. In all probability, you are paralysed with fear; actually, you are most likely to sit stock still – which might provide an alternative explanation for the captain’s 68-minute delay in giving the order to abandon the ship after it struck a reef off the island of Giglio. (Meanwhile, investigators are looking into the possible role played by the cruise line company in the delay.)

This atavistic instinct is part of human evolution; it almost certainly aided the survival of our species. On the savannah, the best chance of a largely naked early human avoiding being eaten would have to been to remain completely still. A predator is much more likely to pounce if it sees you clearly – and movement is most likely to give you away. With panic, you are effectively the proverbial rabbit, immobilised with terror as you see the headlights of the car advance.

In another part of Tuscany, in the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, there is a shocking fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio. His Slaughter of the Innocents depicts the panic of the women of Bethlehem as their children are hacked to pieces by Herod’s soldiers. A screaming mother is frantically tearing the hair of a Roman soldier as he treads on babies in the foreground. Severed heads and mutilated limbs strew the floor and horses skitter in the blood. But strikingly, to one side,

a group of women with babes in arms, stand and stare at the unfolding horror. Seemingly, they could escape through the unguarded triumphal arch behind them. But terror has immobilised them.

Paralysis can easily affect any of us at the moment of crisis. Is this what happened to Schettino? Only an hour earlier he had been the proud Master and Captain, showing off one of the largest passenger vessels afloat, responsible for the pleasures and comfort of more than 3,000 passengers and commanding 1,000 crew members. Suddenly, a mistake meant his lovely vessel was fatally damagedl those lives were at risk. His immobility in the lifeboat and his incoherent conversation with the coastguard are surely explained: those hormones flooding his brain as he is being sworn at account for his curious recorded response on the radio telephone. Shouting orders at a panicking man, who is shivering with his physiological reaction, is not conducive to a rational response.

Pte Thomas Highgate was only 17 when he witnessed the carnage at the Battle of Mons in 1914. More than 7,000 troops were slaughtered as he fled, and he was found immobilised, trembling in a barn. Just 35 days after the start of the First World War, he was shot at dawn. It is almost certain that many of these soldiers, labelled as cowards, were vigorously abused and shouted at. One doctor said later of one such terrified man: “I went to the trial determined to give him no help, for I detest his type – I really hoped he would be shot.”

A Roman citizen from a much earlier age, the Christian author Quintus Tertullian, argues that cowardice produces its own punishment: “Rather bring blood into a man’s cheek, than let it out through his body.” Meanwhile, the French Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne tells of Monsieur de Vervins who, in a moment of panic, surrendered Boulogne to Henry VIII’s army after the keep of the city had been mined during the siege of 1544. De Vervins was sentenced to death for cowardice – but Montaigne suggests that it was unjust to execute a soldier for want of courage. We need, he maintains, to differentiate between “faults that merely proceed from infirmity and those that are visibly the effects of treachery and malice”. Infirmity, he says, are rules “that nature has imprinted in us”.

Poor Captain Schettino, who is apparently now the subject of numerous death threats and could face up to 12 years in prison for abandoning his ship (and more for manslaughter), would be chastened sufficiently in Montaigne’s book by the igno actions.

Panic in the confines of an endangered ship is as dangerous as on the battlefield. It may be treated severely because it is so infectious. On Hallowe’en 1938, Columbia Radio famously broadcast a series of simulated news bulletins about a Martian invasion in New Jersey. It was actually only a play based on The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. But rumours spread, panicked Americans and Canadians closed down their businesses, and thousands fled their homes following the “news”.

I once saw a colleague, a respected surgeon, rigid at the operating table, as his patient’s abdomen slowly filled uncontrollably with blood. Pale with fright and sweating with fear, he was incapable of dealing with the emergency. Shouting and swearing at him would have been futile.

In such a situation, the key piece of equipment in the operating theatre is a simple stool, placed no closer than five metres from the operating table. Once the flow is staunched – a wet pack firmly thrust into the bleeding area and with pressure applied, venous bleeding will nearly always stop – that nondescript furniture becomes vital: the surgeon should remain sitting on it and not touch his patient for at least 10 minutes. When his own pulse rate and blood pressure is controlled and crucial calm restored, work can recommence. The patient’s own defence mechanisms will have most likely come into play and some clotting will have occurred. It is usually enough to remove the swab gently by degrees, dealing with each remaining bleeding point where it is still leaking. Panic over.

Whether in the operating theatre or at the helm of a cruise ship, temperament is so important. Given this, perhaps others are partly responsible for the Concordia disaster. It was surprising to read Mario Palombo, once a commander in the Costa fleet, reported as saying: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino. It’s true, he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant, a daredevil. More than once,

Costa Concordia: mother of 5-year-old girl gives tearful appeal to find her

Italian divers have resumed their search and rescue operations on the crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship, as the mother of a missing five-year-old begs rescuers to find her daughter.

Calm seas enabled Coast Guard and fire service divers to return to the stricken ship, as the mother of a missing five year old girl begged rescuers to keep up the search for her daughter.

Susy Albertini also appealed to other passengers on the ship to come forward if they had any information about where the little girl was last seen, during the panic-stricken evacuation of the vessel by its 4,200 passengers and crew on Friday night and early Saturday morning.

“Please continue looking for my little girl, bring her home to me as soon as you can,” Mrs Albertini told Italian television in a heartfelt plea.

Her lawyer, Davide Veschi, added: “We ask anybody who was in that part of the ship and who managed to get out, if they remember having seen a little girl and her father slip.

“We would ask them to come forward and give precise indications to divers in order to aid them with more targeted searches.”

Dayana - the youngest person missing from the disaster - was with her father, William Arlotti, 36, and he too is missing.

Her parents are separated and so were not together on the cruise liner.

Mr Arlotti’s new partner, Michela Maroncelli, 36, who survived the evacuation, has reported seeing them both slip and fall into the sea. They have not been seen since.

The death toll so far is 11, with at least 20 people still missing.

Francesco Schettino, the Italian cruise liner captain accused of abandoning his stricken vessel with passengers still trapped on-board claimed he left the ship only because he “tripped” and fell into a lifeboat while trying to help with the evacuation.

Schettino, 52, told investigating magistrates that the Costa Concordia was listing so violently there was nothing he could do to get back on board once he had tumbled off and into the safety of a rescue craft.

He admitted however, that he made a “mistake” as he approached the island of Giglio to perform a “salute” for a friend, turning too late and ending up in shallow water where the liner struck a rocky outcrop and eventually capsized.

An off-duty captain who stepped in to help co-ordination the evacuation spoke out yesterday to condemn Mr Schettino’s actions, describing the disaster as “a heartache that I will carry with me forever”.

Colleagues meanwhile, accused the beleaguered Italiancaptain, who has vowed never to go to sea again, of treating the 1,000ft long vessel “like a Ferrari” and said he was an over-exuberant “daredevil”.

Mr Schettino, who was being kept under house arrest in Meta di Sorrento near Naples on Wednesday, was interrogated for three hours on Tuesday about the disaster which has claimed at least 11 lives, with 22 people still missing.

Pressed by magistrates on why he had apparently abandoned the stricken ship, he reportedly said: “I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there.”

He said he got stuck in the lifeboat for an hour before it was lowered into the water off the coast of Giglio island.

A short time afterwards he was seen ashore, leaving an estimated 300 crew and passengers, including children and elderly and disabled people, to fend for themselves. Also with him in the lifeboat was Dimitri Christidis, the Greek second-in-command of the Concordia and Silvia Coronica, the third officer, according to Italian reports.

Mr Schettino told investigators he took the cruise liner to within 0.28 nautical miles of Giglio to perform a “salute” to a former Costa Cruises captain named Mario Palombo.

“… I made a mistake on the approach. I was navigating by sis well and I had done this manoeuvre three or four times. But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow. I don’t know why it happened, I was a victim of my instincts.”

The judge, Valeria Montesarchio, said the Mr Schettino had not made “any serious attempt” to return to the vessel “or even close to it” after evacuating.

The off-duty captain who was forced to step in and lead the evacuation broke his silence on Wednesday.

Roberto Bosio, 44, the captain of one of the Concordia’s sister ships, the Serena, said: “Only a disgraceful man would have left all those passengers on board. It was the most horrible experience of my life, a tragedy, a heartache that I will carry with me forever.” He added: “I just want to rest and forget. Don’t call me a hero. I just did my duty, the duty of a sea captain — actually the duty of a normal man.”

Martino Pellegrino, one of the officers on board the Costa Concordia, joined the growing condemnation of Mr Schettino. “If I had to make a comparison, we got the impression that he would drive a bus like a Ferrari,” he said.

Mario Palombo, a former Costa commander and colleague of the captain, said: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino. It’s true, he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant; a daredevil. More than once I had to put him in his place.”

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Costa Concordia: Captain drove ship 'like it was a Ferrari', says former skipper

Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino skippered the giant liner like a Ferrari driver, a colleague claimed yesterday.

Officer Martino Pellegrino accused his boss of being an authoritarian – and his former captain called Schettino a daredevil.

Mr Pellegrino said: “If I had to make a comparison, we got the impression he would drive a bus like a Ferrari.”

Schettino, who has been slammed as a coward for abandoning the stricken liner before his ­passengers were safe, told a senior magistrate he ended up leaving when he fell into a lifeboat.

Although reports in Italy say he was in the boat with his second in command, Greek Dimitri Christidis, and Silvia Coronica, the third officer. The skipper, 52, said he had been caught among thousands of panic-stricken passengers after Friday night’s crash.

He added: “They were pouring on to the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault. “I didn’t even have a life jacket because I had given it to a passenger. I was trying to get people into the boats in an orderly fashion.

“Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there. Suspended there, I was unable to lower the boat into the sea, as the space was blocked by boats in the water.”

Italian authorities placed Schettino, from Naples, under house arrest after the three-hour grilling by the magistrate on Tuesday.

Schettino, who has been arrested on suspicion of multiple manslaughter, said he was stuck in the lifeboat for an hour before it was lowered into the water off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio.

During the interrogation, Schettino admitted he took the cruise ship close to Giglio to give a salute to former boss Mario Palombo. Schettino also confessed to navigating by sight in the dangerous waters rather than relying on the computer system.

The skipper said: “It’s true the salute was for Commodore Mario Palombo, with whom I was on the telephone. The route was decided as we left Civitavecchia but I made a mistake on the approach.

“I was navigating by sight because I knew the depths well and had done this manoeuvre three or four times. But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow.

“I don’t know why it happened. I was a victim of my instincts.”

Commodore Palombo, the ship’s former skipper, described Schettino as a daredevil. He said: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino.

"It’s true that he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant. He was a daredevil. More than once I had to put him in his place.”

Incredibly, once Schettino reached dry land after the crash and was allowed to leave the harbour master’s office, his only concern was to buy dry socks.

Taxi driver Ottavio Brizzi said he picked up the skipper at 11.30am on Saturday – while scores of passengers were still missing – and took him just 400 yards to the Bahamas Hotel.

Mr Brizzi said: “It was a very short journey, no more than 30 seconds. He didn’t say very much apart from asking me where he could buy some dry socks. He looked very cold and scared – he looked like a beaten dog.”

According to Italian reportsfrom Marseille four weeks ago in 70mph winds. But his family have come to his defence, saying he is a “brilliant” skipper who has been unfairly criticised.

His sister, Giulia Schettino, said: “My brother will demonstrate that he had no responsibility for what happened.”

Under Italian law, a captain who abandons his ship before all crew and passengers are accounted for can be jailed for 12 years.

At least 11 people died and 21 are still missing.

The coastguard recorded on tape angrily ordering Schettino to return to his sinking ship has become a sensation. Captain Gregorio De Falco told the skipper he would “make him pay” for abandoning the £390million liner.

He also screamed: “Get the *** * back on board.” This message now features on T-shirts being sold across Italy. Captain De Falco said yesterday: “My job is safety and I would not have been happy until everyone was safe at home.

“That night there was a team of six of us, the best you can have, but we weren’t able to save them all. If I think about all those people who lost their lives on the Concordia then we were beaten because we didn’t manage to save everyone.

“My voice was simply that of all seamen. I could tell from the tone of his voice that Schettino was lying.”

An off-duty captain, Roberto Bosio, was also hailed a hero yesterday for starting the evacuation while Schettino dithered about sounding the abandon ship signal.

Captain Bosio, who was on the Concordia by chance and who is in charge of a sister ship, said: “Only a disgraceful man would have left all those passengers on board.”

The 45-year-old added: “It was the most horrible experience of my life. A tragedy, a heartache I will carry with me for ever. Don’t call me a hero. I just did my duty.”

Incredibly, survivors say the theme from the Titanic film – My Heart Will Go On sung by Celine Dion – was playing on the ship as it struck the rocd: “Images from the film Titanic are more realistic than one might think.”

He said the song was stuck in his head as most of the crew did nothing to help them.

The search of the Costa Concordia cruise ship has been suspended after the capsized vessel slipped, the Italian coast guard says.

Officials are hoping to begin salvage work soon, including pumping oil off the wreck, as hopes fade of finding any more survivors.

Twenty-three people are missing, and 11 confirmed dead, after the huge ship crashed into rocks on Friday.

There are fears the vessel might slip into deeper water off the Tuscan coast.

"Instruments indicated the ship had moved. We are in the process of evaluating if it has found a new resting point to allow us to resume," fire department spokesman Luca Cari said.

Along with the salvage workers - who will begin operations once rescue efforts have been declared over - a specialist team from Dutch salvage company SMIT is to prepare to pump more than 2,300 tonnes of fuel from the ship's 17 tanks.

The firm says this could take several weeks. Experts believe there is little risk of a major fuel leak that would contaminate the scenic area.

Hungary's foreign ministry said one of the recovered bodies was that of Sandor Feher, a 38-year-old Hungarian musician working on board, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who is visiting London, said: "Any such disaster could and should be avoided".

He added that his government was working to limit any environmental damage.