Recovery teams working on the capsized Italian liner Costa Concordia are racing to complete the search for victims of the disaster before the weather turns and salvage crews need to start pumping fuel from the wreck.
One of the specialist diving crews said today the available window could be as small as 12 to 24 hours, although the chief spokesman of the rescue services denied that any deadline had been set and said the situation was still evolving.
Six days after the ship capsized off the Tuscan coast, hopes of finding anyone alive on the partially submerged hulk have all but disappeared.
Eleven people are known to have died and 21 people are still unaccounted for out of more than 4,200 passengers and crew aboard when the ship struck a rock just metres from the shoreline, tearing a large gash in the side of the hull.
The ship is holding more than 2,300 tonnes of diesel and lubricating oil, and salvage crews are already preparing to begin pumping the fuel out of the wreck.
Environment minister Corrado Clini has warned there is a risk that with sea conditions expected to worsen, the ship could slip down 50 to 90 metres from the reef it is resting on, further damaging the vessel and creating a major hazard to the environment in one of Europe's largest natural marine parks.
The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, blamed for causing the shipwreck by steering too close to shore and then abandoning the vessel before the evacuation was complete, is under house arrest.
Prosecutors said they would appeal against a decision by a judge on Tuesday to allow Capt Schettino to return home, saying he may seek to flee.
In the ruling, the judge said Capt Schettino had shown "incredible carelessness" and "a total inability to manage the successive phases of the emergency", only sounding the alarm 30 to 40 minutes after the initial impact. He had abandoned the ship and remained on shore in a state of "complete inertia" for more than an hour, "watching the ship sink", the ruling said.
"No serious attempt was made by the captain to return even close to the ship in the immediate aftermath of abandoning the Costa Concordia."
According to Mr Schettino's lawyer, the captain has admitted bringing the ship too close to shore but he denies bearing sole responsibility for the incident and says other factors may have played a role.
Mr Schettino was always available to provide information to coast guard and rescue services throughout the evacuation, even when he was not on board the vessel, his lawyer says.
A new recording aired today suggests a crew member of the capsized liner told the Italian coastguard the vessel had only suffered a power outage and there was no emergency onboard, even after passengers had put on life vests.
News channel Sky TG 24, which broadcast the tape, said it was the first radio conversation between the coastguard and the cruise ship.
The conversation began at 10.12pm, about 30 minutes after the accident, Sky TG 24 reported.
By then, many passengers had called relatives on their mobile phones asking them to alert the police, who in turn told the coastguard to check on the state of the ship.
"Good evening Costa Concordia, please, do you have problems on board?", a coastguard official asks the bridge.
An unidentified member of the crew replies: "We've had a blackout, we are checking the conditions on board.
"The coastguard asks: "What kind of a problem? Is it just something with the generator? The police ... have received a phone call from the relatives of a sailor who said that during the dinner everything was falling on his head."
The coastguard says some passengers were already wearing life jackets. The crew member simply repeats that there has been a blackout.
"We are checking the conditions on board," he says, promising to keep the coastguard informed.
The deputy mayor of Giglio, who assisted in the rescue of the Costa Concordia after it hit rocks off Italy's coast, told investigators it took him 20 minutes to find a senior officer on the ship and that he helped passengers to safety after it proved difficult to lower lifeboats.
Mario Pellegrini said he arrived near the grounding scene about 11pm on January 13th, as the first passengers were escaping from the vessel.
Mr Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before all his passengers and crew scrambled off.
The owners say the captain swung inshore to "take a bow" to the islanders, who included a retired Italian admiral. Investigators say it was within 150 metres of shore.
The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.
Costa Crociere today suspended Mr Schettino, the company's lawyer said.
Agencies