AN Australian mother and her young daughter have described being pushed aside by hysterical men as they tried to board lifeboats on the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship.

Michelle Barraclough, 46, of Melbourne, said she and husband John Sultana clutched on to their 12-year-old daughter Katherine to keep her by their side during the mayhem as 4000 passengers tried to cram on to lifeboats and flee the violently listing vessel.

“It was every man for himself,” Ms Barraclough said.

“Basically what we did was John held one hand and I held the other and we just dragged her with us.

“We were not letting her go under any circumstances.

“We held on to her the whole time.”

The chartered accountant from Essendon said she was pushed aside by "grown men and women" who were frantically trying to squeeze on to already packed lifeboats.

Some hysterical passengers ripped the doors off lifeboats and piled up to 240 people on to a vessel designed to evacuate no more than 115, she said.

“Everybody just shoved and screamed in 15 different languages,” Ms Barraclough said.

“The people that pushed their way on to the boat were then trying to tell them to shut the door, not to let any more people on the boat after they had pushed their way on.

“We just couldn’t believe it _ especially the men, they were worse than the women.”

The family, who took the Mediterranean cruise as a Christmas present, were among some of the 23 stranded Australian survivors who caught flights home from Rome today.

The death toll rose to five today after the bodies of two elderly people were found in the ship’s restaurant.

Among the 17 people still missing are a 30-year-old Italian man and his five-year-old daughter, according to Italian reports.

The man was reportedly separated from his partner by the panicked crowds as they tried to board a lifeboat.

She made it to safety but the man and his daughter, who remained on the doomed ship waiting for another lifeboat, have not been seen since.

As the search continued inside the enormous vessel today, fresh accounts of miraculous survival and heartbreak have emerged.

The ship's purser Manrico Giampedroni, 57, was found alive 36-hours after the ship hit an underwater rocky reef off the coast of Tuscany on Friday.

While the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino was confirmed to have abandoned the ship in the middle of the evacuation, Mr Giampedroni stayed behind to ensure all crew and passengers were evacuated.

He broke his leg when the vessel listed to one side and remained trapped in the submerged wreckage but was saved by rescuers who heard his cries for help.

Two Frenchmen and a Peruvian crew member were confirmed among the dead.

An 84-year-old Italian man who was separated from his family during the ship’s electrical blackout and a 30-year-old Italian woman who jumped into the freezing ocean are among the missing.