Missing Indian’s brother watches Italy cruise wreck search

THE BROTHER of a missing Indian waiter missing after a cruise ship hit rocks off the coast of Italy last week travelled to Giglio Island today to watch rescuers as they searched.Kevin Rebello, whose family in Mumbai in India is waiting anxiously for any news of 33-year-old Russel, said he could not believe that the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino had been released pending an investigation.“If it had happened in another country, he would not be home now sipping coffee with his mum, he would be in prison,” Rebello told reporters on the rocky shores of Giglio.“It’s not Disneyland, you’re playing with people’s lives.“My brother stayed to help others … it should have been the captain who left the ship last. The fact he left early is something I just cannot get over, I’m very angry,” Rebello said.Rebello said his brother is married and a has a two-and-a-half year old daughter. He began working on the Costa Concordia last October.“The gash in the side of the ship is where my brother’s cabin was located,” he said.“Russel was ill with a fever that day, he had been in the ship’s hospital and when he went to rest in his cabin he was woken by smoke and water. He escaped in just a T-shirt and shorts and went to alert a friend.“The friend gave him trousers and shoes and my brother rushed to help passengers with the evacuation on the fourth floor. He had a life-jacket on at one point but I’ve been told he gave it to a passenger who didn’t have one.“The ship was still moving, and I think he must have slipped. I think he could have been trapped below or sucked into the vacuum,” said Rebello, who works in Milan and travelled to Tuscany to track his brother’s last movements.Rebello said he had spoken to almost 120 Indians who had been working on the ship, as well as Peruvian friends of his brother.“The authorities cannot tell me anything, we have to wait,” he said.At least 11 people died when the luxury cruise ship struck a rock off the Tuscan island and lurched over onto its side. Another 21 passengers and crew are still unaccounted for and divers are searching the vessel.The ship’s captain has been accused of having sailed too close to the coast. He is being investigated for multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship and is under house arrest.