Italy cruise survivors testify for first time

[ROME] Survivors of Italy's Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster began testifying for the first time on Monday at the trial of its captain Francesco Schettino as the liner's owner said it could be towed away in July.

"I suffer from panic attacks," an Italian passenger, Ivana Codoni, was quoted by the Ansa news agency as saying at the trial in Grosseto near the scene of the January 2012 disaster on Giglio Island in Tuscany.

"I never had any before the shipwreck. Now I am under constant medical monitoring," she told the court. "The staff were telling us to go back to our cabins but we knew it was a trick," she said, adding: "We escaped to the external decks. We were operating on our own."