Crippled Italian cruise ship being towed in Indian Ocean

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NAIROBI, Kenya – The stranded Italian cruise ship Costa Allegra is being towed by two French fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean to a nearby Seychelles island, Tuesday.

Officials said the ship is not expected to reach the tiny resort island until Wednesday.

Seychelles authorities said they are making arrangements to move people to the island of Desroches and then to transfer the more than 1,000 passengers and crew members to the main Seychelles island of Mahe by plane and fast boats.

Desroches is a small, exclusive coral-lined island that has seen such visitors as Prince William and Kate Middleton before the two married.

The Costa Allegra lost power Monday after a fire in its generator room. The fire knocked out power to the ship’s engines as well as to its lights and air conditioning.

The power burnout came six weeks after the Costa Concordia capsized, killing 25 people and leaving seven missing and presumed dead. Both ships are operated by Costa Crociere SpA, which is owned by the Florida-based Carnival Corp.

There are 636 passengers on board the Allegra from 25 countries — most are from Europe, but there are 13 Canadians on board with a crew of just over 400.

No one was injured in the fire Monday, but the blaze set the cruiseliner adrift at sea in a region where Somali pirates prey on ships.

The cruise ship company said that a helicopter took off from Seychelles’ main island on Tuesday and will take food, satellite phones and VHF radios to the ship. Guests have been asked to prepare their luggage for disembarkation.

Photos released by the Seychelles on Tuesday showed hundreds of people milling outside on the decks of the Costa Allegra. Taken by an Indian navy plane, the photos showed calm seas and an upright ship.

The Costa Allegra is adrift “and being pushed by the current. It is stable and upright,” Giorgio Moretti, the director of nautical operations for Costa Crociere SpA, told reporters in a conference call late Monday from company headquarters in Genoa, Italy.

“It’s a big ship and to tow it, to move it across the waters, is a heavy task,” said Seychelles presidential spokeswoman Srdjana Janosevic. She said that everything is calm on board the cruise ship and that no one is hurt.

Italian Coast Guard officials said emergency generators were keeping the ship’s control room illuminated and communications equipment such as radios running. Officials said the cruise liner was holding steady, despite 1.5-metre waves in the area and passengers were being kept in the ship’s big communal rooms, not in their cabins.

Moretti, a longtime Costa captain, said he expected the 636 passengers aboard would spend the night on outside decks. Among them were 212 Italian, 31 British and eight U.S. passengers, he said. Four of the passengers were children ages 3 or younger.

The Allegra, whose Italian name means “merry,” or “happy,” had left northern Madagascar, off Africa’s southeast coast, on Saturday and was cruising toward Port Victoria when the fire erupted. Costa said the Allegra had been due in Port Victoria on Tuesday.

The general region where the cruise ship was adrift — off the coast of Tanzania — has seen a rash of attacks by Somali pirates. In 2009, an Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people aboard fended off a pirate attack in the Indian Ocean far off the coast of Somalia.

Moretti said an armed nine-member Italian military team on anti-pirate duty was aboard the Allegra, but he insisted the maritime region where the ship was now “isn’t a high risk area for pirates.”

“If pirates attack, the armed guards on board will respond. But as far as I am aware, no pirates have been sighted in the area,” said Janosevic.

Moretti said 15 Costa engineers, technicians and other officials were flying to Mahe in hope of reaching the Allegra by air to repair its generators.

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