Investigators board stricken ferry

Tugs escort Norman Atlantic to Brindisi
 BRINDISI-The Norman Atlantic docked Friday as prosecutors widened the probe of a fire that killed 11 people and forced rescue of over 300 others.

 As the charred vessel was moored to Brindisi's Costa Morena Nord dock still smoking from the onboard fire, investigators and technicians led by Prosecutor Ettore Cardinali supported by firefighters began an onboard inspection immediately to see if there were other corpses there. The investigators clambered onto the upper deck of the ferry using a firefighters’ ladder.

  Prosecutors said they added four more suspects to the probe, including two crew members and two employees of the Greek company that leased the ferry, Anek Lines. The two crew members were identified as Luigi Iovine, 45, the first officer, and Francesco Romano, 56, the second engineering officer.

The agony of relatives of those listed as missing continued, meanwhile. In Naples, Mario Balzano, the son of a lorry driver listed as missing since Sunday, Carmine Balzano, said the waiting for news of his father was “exhausting”.

 Mario said he had driven back to Italy from Germany where he works. The worst moment had been waiting in Bari to identify the body of a man believed to be his father only to discover that the corpse was of another person. “it wasn’t my father, nor were the personal effects that they showed me his”.

Investigators continue to try to determine the total number of people on board, fearing stowaways may not have been included in the official tally.
    Bari Prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe has said he fears that as many as 98 people have not been accounted and dozens more dead may be found inside the ferry once it is fully examined.
    It also emerged that another fire had broken out on Nov. 30, some 25 miles from Brindisi, in the engine room of a separate ferry between Greece and Italy, the Ierapetra L., operated by the same company, Anek Line, judicial sources said.
   Captain Argilio Giacomazzi, who has been praised for his handling of the crisis and for being last to be rescued from the ferry in Sunday's fire, shrugged off any compliments.
    Speaking from his home near La Spezia, in Italy's Liguria region, Giacomazzi said it was more important to remember the victims.
    "We did our best with the help of God," he shrugged.

 Zoran Koron, a Slovenian truck driver who survived the drama, said “the rescuers did everything possible, they tried in every way to save the lives of the passengers”.