The Italian prosecutor investigating the Norman Atlantic ferry disaster has said he assumes more bodies will be found on the ship.
Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe said the fact that a number of stowaways had been among those rescued from the ferry made it "likely" that others had perished in the fire that engulfed the vessel on Sunday morning.
"It is likely that we will find other victims in the wreckage," Volpe told a press conference in the southern port of Bari.
The Italian coast guard has so far recovered ten bodies as well as two Albanian seamen who died as a result of a tugboat accident during the salvage operation.
Nearly 40 passengers listed as having been on the ferry are still unaccounted for but it is unclear whether this is due to them having died as a result of the fire or by drowning, or the result of errors in the ship's manifest.
There are gaps in information about people who had booked but who did not eventually travel and about people who disembarked during a stopover earlier in the journey.
Some of those rescued were not on the ship's passenger list.
12 people are known to have died after the Norman Atlantic caught fire early on Sunday.
The blaze is thought to have started on the car deck of the ferry while it was making its way from Patras in Greece to Ancona on the east coast of Italy, the Greek Coast Guard has said.
Yesterday, rescue teams completed the evacuation of 427 people from the ferry, working through the night and defying high seas and freezing weather in a 36-hour drama.
Some 45 passengers were flown back to Greece yesterday on a military plane after being rescued by boat and taken to Bari, Italy.
One unidentified woman was asking an officer what happened to the other survivors as, although she was told in Italy that her husband was rescued, she had no idea where he was.
"It's my husband I am telling you. He was one of the last to leave. He was still there around noon time."
Other passengers said the crew was inexperienced.
"We had to improvise. The crew were in total panic," an unidentified rescued passenger said.
The injured evacuees who arrived in Italy were being treated in various facilities in southern Italian cities.
