UPDATE:
Cruise Hive has received a response from Costa Cruises with the following statement:
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PREVIOUSLY:
One of the the largest and newest ships in the Costa fleet the Costa Fascinosa has experienced bad weather while sailing in the Mediterranean on Monday September 22nd.
According to local Italian news outlets and Cruise Law News the 114,500 ton ship has been caught in a waterspout. A waterspout looks identical to a tornado but usually not as strong and are common in hot tropical regions. The waterspout that affected the Fascinosa seemed to have caused winds up to 90 mph along with strong waves for more than 2 hours.
At the time the vessel was heading towards the Greek Islands from its departure port of Venice, Italy. The incident occurred near the Marche coast in the East of Italy. According to Corriere Adriatico at around 10:45 pm  the waves caused one engine to fail which made the large ship list heavily. All over the Costa Fascinosa flew glasses, plates and utensils. According to the site “Several passengers have fallen to the ground driven by the centrifugal force imposed by rotation”
One crew member who seems to be a Chef onboard the ship posted a video of the galley just after it happened. There seems to be just shock at what had just happened.
You can also see some photos of the aftermath that the crew member Jimmy Hernandez has posted. From the photos it seems the crew have started cleaning up all the damaged plates. We wonder if the ship had enough plates for the rest of the cruise!
According to other reports from Italian news outlets including Blitz Quotidiano the captain had made announcements for passengers to put on life jackets as he lost control of the ship.
Cruise Hive has asked Costa Cruises for any more details on what happened and will update this post once we get a response.
Photo By: Jimmy Hernandez
