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Eleven people confirmed dead, 22 still missing Search suspended after ship slips 1.5 metres Police find exact spot ship was pierced by rocks

Divers searching the stricken Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia were forced to suspended work Wednesday after the wreck shifted by more than a metre.

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The development came as the beleaguered captain of the vessel claimed that he tripped and fell into a lifeboat during the emergency.

Francesco Schettino, blamed for causing the accident by steering too close to shore and then abandoning the vessel before the evacuation was complete, was put under house arrest on Tuesday after being questioned by a judge.

But Schettino says he stumbled as the ship was tipping dangerously and he was helping passengers.

“The passengers were pouring on to the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” he is alleged to have told an investigating judge according tom Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

“I didn’t even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the passengers. I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there,” The Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying.