GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy, Jan 15, 2012 (AFP) - Rescuers evacuated a South Korean honeymoon couple from a cruise ship that hit rocks and keeled over off the west coast of Italy, Italy's ANSA news agency said Sunday, quoting rescuers.
The couple, both aged 29, had been reached by firemen on a lower deck of the Costa Concordia, ANSA said.
They had boarded the ship on their first-ever cruise at Civitavecchia, further south on the Italian coast.
The report of the rescue came after Luca Cari, a spokesman for the fire brigade at the scene of the disaster off the island of Giglio, told AFP the pair had been heard and were being sought by 35 emergency workers.
The couple were stranded in cabin 303 two decks below rescuers on the half-submerged ship, where a search for dozens of missing people out of more than 4,200 originally on board was continuing late into the night.
The Koreans were in good health and able to walk off the firemen's boat onto Giglio in Tuscany, where an ambulance took them away for medical checks, ANSA said.
The rescue workers took 90 minutes to extract them from their cabin.
"The cabins were checked out one by one ... when we arrived at the stern we called out hoping someone might reply. Which was the case," fire service chief Fabio Bargagna said.
The two Koreans told the rescuers they had heard a lot of noise but had not been able to make themselves heard earlier.
They said they had not seen or heard anyone else around them in their 24-hour nightmare.
In Seoul, the foreign ministry told AFP that a total of 35 South Koreans, including two crew members, had been found so far in the rescue effort.
"The two honeymooners were probably among them. We don't know details of exactly when and how each of the 35 people were found," a spokeswoman said.
Three people have been confirmed dead in the disaster, and rescuers were continuing their search on all decks that had not been submerged. The number of missing has been put at between 40 and 60.