A Korean couple and another person have been rescued from the stricken Costa Concordia, 24-hours after the massive ship hit a reef and rolled onto its side near the island of Giglio off the Tuscan coast.
The honeymooners were trapped in their cabin as the ship listed to one of its sides in shallow water.
Prato fire commander Vincenzo Bennardo said that rescuers, who had been banging on doors of the ship cabins all night finally heard a reply from one of the rooms early today.
He said the two, about 29 years old, were in good condition.
The rescuers never stopped going door-to-door during the night in the non-submerged part of the ship, the commander said.
A third passenger was located two hours later in a lower deck.
Two French passengers and a Peruvian crewman died in the accident and 40 people remain missing. 4,200 people were successfully evacuated.
DIVERS SEARCH SUBMERGED SECTION OF THE SHIP
Divers are, meanwhile, searching the submerged half of a cruise ship for the missing people.
A coast guard official said the missing might be trapped "in the belly of the ship".
Capt Cosimo Nicastro said there were no firm indications that anyone was trapped on the Costa Concordia.
But he noted that rescuers carried out an extensive search of the waters near the ship for hours and "we would have seen bodies".
He said "the place where they might be is in the belly of the ship".
The accident tore a 50-metre gash in the ship's hull allowing the sea to rush in.
Survivors who escaped the ship said they crawled along upended hallways trying to reach safety as plates and glasses crashed.
Passengers described a scene reminiscent of Titanic, complaining the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.
Authorities have been checking names against the passenger list, but have had a hard time accounting for everyone.
Passengers Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ontario, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, said they were watching the magic show in the ship's main theatre when they felt an initial lurch, as if from a severe steering manoeuvre, followed a few seconds later by a "shudder" that tipped rubbish bins over. The subsequent listing of the ship made the theatre curtains seem like they were standing on their side.
"And then the magician disappeared," Laurie Willits said, saying the magician left the stage and panicked audience members fled for their cabins as well.
Once at their life boat station, crew members directed passengers to go upstairs from the fourth floor deck; Alan Willits said he refused.
"I said 'no this isn't right.' And I came out and I argued 'When you get this boat stabilised, I'll go up to the fifth floor then," he said. Eventually, his lifeboat was lowered down.
But things didn't improve for passengers once aboard the lifeboats or on land.
"No one counted us, neither in the life boats nor on land," said Ophelie Gondelle, 28, a French military officer from Marseille. She said there had been no evacuation drill since she boarded in Marseille, France on January 8.
A top Costa executive, Gianni Onorato, said on Giglio the Concordia's captain had the liner on its regular, weekly route when it struck a reef.
"The ship was doing what it does 52 times a year, going along the route between Civitavecchia and Savona," a shaken-looking Onorato, who is Costa's director general, told reporters. The captain is an 11-year Costa veteran, he said.
He said Costa was co-operating with Italian investigators to find out what went wrong.
Cruise line officials said that after the ship hit a reef, the captain tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio's small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier. But after the ship started listing badly, lifeboat evacuation was no longer feasible.
The ship's captain is being held for questioning by Grosseto prosecutors, Italian state TV reported.