4 Nov 2014

Last Costa Concordia victim found

4:11 pm on 4 November 2014

The body of the last missing victim of Italy's 2012 cruise ship disaster has reportedly been found on board the wrecked Costa Concordia, which is being dismantled in Genoa.

The refloated Costa Concordia.

The refloated Costa Concordia. Photo: AFP

Italian media reported the body, found by employees of Ship Recycling - the group charged with scrapping the luxury liner - is expected to be that of missing Indian waiter Russel Rebello.

"The remains of the Indian waiter were found inside a cabin on deck eight of the ship," La Stampa daily said on its website, citing local sources.

Mr Rebello had been the only one of 32 victims whose body had not been found, the ABC reported.

The remains were discovered under furniture which had been overturned when the Concordia, which struck a rock off the island of Giglio in Tuscany in a night-time accident nearly three years ago, rolled on to its side.

The Repubblica newspaper said the cabin was in a part of the ship crushed against the sea floor.

Scraps of the waiter's uniform were found intact despite being underwater for so long, it said.

In August, authorities announced they had found remains on the ship and would test them to see if they belonged to Mr Rebello.

Italian media later reported that those remains were determined to be lamb bones.

The hulking vessel, about twice the size of the Titanic, sank on the night of January 13 with 4229 people from 70 countries on board.

Earlier this year it was finally removed from the island and towed to Genoa to be scrapped.

Captain Francesco Schettino is on trial for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all the passengers had been evacuated.

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