Italian divers have halted the search for 15 people still missing from the Costa Concordia shipwreck on the Tuscan island of Giglio in which a total of 32 people are feared to have died.
"We have definitively stopped the underwater search inside the ship," a spokesman for the fire brigade on the island said on Tuesday, explaining that conditions inside the giant half-submerged liner were becoming too risky.
The civil protection agency, which has been overseeing rescue efforts following the January 13 disaster, said in a statement it had contacted the families of the missing and foreign embassies involved to explain its decision.
It added that emergency crews would continue to inspect the part of the ship that is above the water line and use specialist equipment to check whether there could be any corpses on the sea bed.
