Cruise ship disaster: another batch of 130 Indians arrive

The second batch of 130 Indians rescued from the Italian cruise ship 'Costa Concordia', which hit a rock and sank off the Tuscan coast in Italy last week, returned home today.

"Of the 130, 29 arrived at New Delhi by two flights, 69 at Mumbai by three flights, five at Bangalore, six at Cochin, 16 at Chennai, three at Kolkata and one each at Kozikode and Amritsar," G H Ratra, Protector of Emigrants at the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, said.

The largest of contingent of 50 rescued Indian crew members arrived by a Turkish Airlines flight from Rome via Istanbul at Mumbai while 19 others came by two Emirates flights via Dubai from Rome, he added.
Yesterday, 63 Indians had returned home, with the first batch of 12 people arriving here at IGI airport.

There were a total of 203 Indians on board the ill-fated ship - one passenger and 202 crew members. Of them, 201 Indians were rescued and 31-year-old Robello Russel Terence from Mumbai is missing. One of the rescued, whose wife is an Italian national, has decided to stay back.

"Of the 29, who were flown to New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International airport here from Italy in an Emirates and Qatar Airways flights via Dubai and Doha, nine left for Mumbai, eight for Goa, one each to Patna, Bangalore, Gawahati, Dehradun, by domestic flights, soon after their arrival," an official said.