3 More bodies found in cruise ship wreck

Three more bodies were found in the wreckage of the semi-submerged cruise liner Costa Concordia on Thursday and will be recovered in the next few days, Italy's civil protection agency said. "Three bodies were found today in the stern of the ship by a remote controlled robot which was searching the area. They will be recovered in the next few days," a civil protection agency spokesman told AFP. "After so long in the water they will be difficult to identify," he said. The Costa Concordia was carrying 4,229 passengers and crew when it struck rocks off Giglio island in Tuscany and keeled over on the night of January 13, killing 32 people. So far 28 bodies have been found -- including the three discovered on Thursday -- but there are still four missing. Salvage workers who began pumping 2,400 tonnes of fuel oil from the ship's tanks on February 12 were in the very last stages of the operation and "will be finished by Saturday," the agency said. Italian prosecutors have placed the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, and first officer, Ciro Ambrosio, under investigation for the disaster. Dozens of survivors have launched lawsuits against cruise line Costa and its US parent company Carnival Corp in France, Germany and the United States and Costa has offered uninjured passengers 11,000 euros each plus expenses as compensation.