Families of Costa Concordia survivors await news

“Friends, please pray for me. My ship struck a rock. Water has started to come in,” 27-year-old I Made Mesib wrote on his Facebook account on Saturday night when the luxury cruise ship on which he was working, the Costa Concordia, struck a rock off of Giglio Island in Italy.

When he wrote this on his Facebook wall using his smartphone, the native of Kintamani, Bangli, was still in the ship awaiting rescue.

“We’re still on the sea, but close to the shore. I lost all of my money and stuff,” he wrote in response to dozens of comments on his status from family and friends.

“When I heard the news from him, all of our family started to panic. Everyone prayed for his safety,” said Mesib’s cousin Made Indrayani.

Their panic intensified when not long afterward, Mesib could not be reached. “Everyone tried to call him, but failed. Fortunately, he finally called his girlfriend, so we were relieved,” Indrayani said.

The relief turned into joy when Mesib uploaded a photo of the sinking ship on his Facebook the next day. “Thank God I can still see the sun,” he wrote.

After the incident, which he likened to the movie Titanic, Mesib and 169 other Indonesian workers onboard the ship were evacuated to the Indonesian Embassy in Rome.

“No one visited us at the embassy, and there has been no news [on when we can return],” said Mesib, who has gone on three working trips with the cruise liner. Each working trip usually lasts eight months.

“Our family will not be completely at ease until Mesib has returned home,” Indrayani said. However, the family has not received any news about when he will be allowed to return to Bali.

“We hope he can come back soon and work here,” she added.

Similar hope was expressed by Sartini. Her brother, Agus Wijaya, and her boyfriend, Made Topan Setiawan, were also working on the cruise when the accident took place.

“I found out about the incident through Facebook because one of the crew members wrote about it on her status bar. I was so anxious,” she said, adding that she could not call her brother or her boyfriend.

“I texted them because they were unreachable when I called.” Not long afterward, the family got news from some of the cruise ship’s crew members from Bali that both of them were safe. “We’re waiting for them to come home soon.”

Besides Sartini and Indrayani, the families of dozens of other Indonesians aboard the ill-fated ship were waiting anxiously for the return of their loved ones.

I Wayan Wiratha, the head of the Bali Manpower Agency, said that out of the 170 Indonesian workers on the cruise ship, 53 of them had been dispatched from Bali. Of that number, 26 were native islanders.

They landed work on the ship through three employment agencies based in Bali: PT Miranti Magsaysay, PT Cemerlang Tunggal Inti Karsa and PT Bali Guna Inti Nusa.

“According to the reports we received, all of the Indonesians on the cruise ship are safe. There were two of them from Bali who had to be treated at hospital because of bone fractures. But they have recovered,” Wiratha said.

However, the agency did not have a database of the victims. It said that it was not responsible for issuing working licenses.