More bodies were found over the weekend aboard the cruise ship that capsized off the coast of Italy, raising the official death toll to 13. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
By NBC News and msnbc.com news services
Updated at 12:20 p.m. ET: GIGLIO, Italy -- Italian officials say two more bodies have been recovered from the capsized Costa Concordia, according to the Associated Press, bringing the death toll of the accident to 15.
The national civil protection agency official in charge of the search said Monday that divers recovered the bodies of two women from the ship's Internet cafe.
The recovery of the two brings to 17 the number of known missing. However, officials over the weekend said it appeared unregistered guests were on board at the time of the accident, meaning the number of officially missing could increase.
Meanwhile, Italian officials say experts can begin pumping fuel from a capsized cruise ship while divers continue the search for people still missing.
Admiral Ilarione dell'Anna said Monday that the fuel removal could begin as early as Tuesday.
The national civil protection agency official in charge of the search said that would continue "as long as it is possible to inspect whatever can be inspected."
The decision to carry out both operations in tandem was made after it was determined that the Costa Concordia did not risk falling to a lower seabed.
"The ship is stable," said Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort. "There is no problem or danger that it is about to drop onto much lower seabed."
The pristine sea around Giglio, where the ship with 4,200 people aboard rammed a reef and sliced open its hull on Jan. 13 before turning over on its side, is a prized fishing area and part of a protected area for whales and dolphins.
Identifying victims
On Sunday divers found the body of a woman on a submerged deck near the bow of the vessel.
Earlier, Italian authorities raised the possibility that the real number of the missing was unknown because some unregistered passengers might have been aboard. As of Monday, 17 people remain missing, but that number could be higher.
Divers find the body of a woman in the ship as pressure grows to speed up the salvage operation. NBC's Duncan Golestani reports.
"There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine" passengers aboard the ship, Gabrielli told reporters at a briefing on the island of Giglio.
Gabrielli said that relatives of a Hungarian woman have told Italian authorities that she had telephoned them from aboard the ship and that they haven't heard from her since the accident. He said it was possible that a woman's body pulled from the wreckage by divers on Saturday might be that of the unregistered passenger. NBC News' Michelle Kosinski reported that female victim found Sunday was around 25 years old, but it was still unknown if she is the unregistered passenger.
In addition to the body recovered on Sunday, the body found on Saturday and those of three men found a few days earlier, have yet to be identified, because the corpses were badly decomposed after so much time in the water. Gabrielli said they have identified the other eight bodies: four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national.
Investigation continues
Meanwhile, the operators of the Costa Concordia faced questions over their share of the blame for the shipwreck.
Captain Francesco Schettino is accused of steering the cruise ship too close to shore while performing a maneuver known as a "salute" in which liners draw up very close to land to make a display.
Schettino, who is charged with multiple manslaughter and with abandoning ship before the evacuation of 4,200 passengers and crew was complete, has told prosecutors he had been instructed to perform the maneuver by operator Costa Cruises.
Schettino said the fatal maneuver was originally intended to bring the ship half a mile from the shore, "but then we brought it to 0.28" (of a nautical mile), he said.
Investigators have said the actual point of impact was much closer to the shore but establishing the exact sequence of events could be complicated by problems with the recording equipment used to track the ship's progress.
DigitalGlobe
The Costa Concordia ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of passengers as the ship began heavily listing.
Schettino said the black box on board had been broken for two weeks and he had asked for it to be repaired, in vain.
According to transcripts of his hearing with investigators leaked to Italian newspapers, Schettino told magistrates Costa had insisted on the maneuver to please passengers and attract publicity.
"It was planned, we were supposed to have done it a week earlier but it was not possible because of bad weather," Schettino said, according to the Corriere della Sera daily.
"They insisted. They said: 'We do tourist navigation, we have to be seen, get publicity and greet the island'."
Costa Cruises Chief Executive Pier Luigi Foschi has previously said that Schettino delayed issuing the SOS and evacuation orders and gave false information to the company headquarters.
"Personally, I think he wasn't honest with us," Foschi told Corriere della Sera Friday. He said the first phone conversation between Schettino and Ferrarini took place 20 minutes after the ship hit the rock.
Foschi, who visited Giglio Sunday, declined to respond to Schettino's latest comments.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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