Crippled Italian ship makes slow journey to Seychelles

VICTORIA (AFP) - A crippled Italian cruise ship from the same fleet as the doomed Costa Concordia limped towards the Seychelles Wednesday, as a fishing boat towed it through the pirate-infested waters of the Indian Ocean.

The more than 1,000 people on board the Costa Allegra spent a second night on the ship's decks in sweltering temperatures after a fire on Monday took out the air-conditioning system along with the entire power supply and the engines.

The boat "is coming slowly, but is coming," said a Seychelles coast guard official who declined to be named, speaking at the command centre in Victoria port where the ship's progress is tracked on a giant map.

The liner was expected to arrive into port in Mahe, the main island of the Seychelles archipelago, by 0500 GMT on Thursday, he added.

A French tuna fishing boat, the Trevignon, responded to the Costa Allegra's mayday call and was towing the boat solo, crawling along at a speed of around six knots (11 kilometres per hour, seven miles per hour) through calm seas.

Italian coast guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro told news channel Sky TG24 the boat was due to dock into port at around 0430 GMT.

Helicopters delivered food to the stricken vessel Wednesday, and footage filmed during the delivery showed people crowded around one of the cruise ship's swimming pools.

The fire broke out near the ship's generators in the engine room as the Costa Allegra was making its way from Madagascar, which it departed on Saturday, to the Seychelles, where it had been due to arrive on Tuesday.

Emergency crews on board extinguished the fire after a few hours and no one was injured, but the liner was left powerless and adrift.

However, a Seychelles coast guard vessel brought a small emergency power generator to the Costa Allegra on Tuesday to help restore some basic services, while two Seychelles tugboats were also on hand to provide support if needed.

The ship was initially being towed to the tiny remote island of Desroches, also part of the Seychelles, but the course was changed when officials deemed the facilities there inadequate for large numbers.

Mahe is a further 200 kilometres away.

The Costa Allegra is owned by the same company as the much larger Costa Concordia, which crashed off the Italian island of Giglio and keeled over last month with 4,229 people on board in an accident that claimed 32 lives.

Nine people are under investigation for the disaster, including three Costa Crociere executives, the Costa Concordia's captain and five other crew members.

A team of officials from Italy's coast guard and transport ministry flew to the Seychelles Tuesday to investigate the accident and help disembarkation.

Costa Crociere said there were 636 passengers and 413 crew members from 25 countries on board the ship, including nine Italian Marines hired to guard against possible pirate attacks. It said everyone was in good health.

Most of the passengers are Italian, French, Austrian and Swiss.

After the Seychelles, an idyllic archipelago of more than 115 islands, the Costa Allegra had been due to travel along the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.