More than 4,000
passengers are disembarking a crippled cruise ship which reached land
four days after an engine fire knocked out its power.
The Carnival Triumph arrived in Mobile, Alabama at around 21:15 (03:15 GMT).
It could take five hours to unload all the passengers. Hot
food, blankets and mobile phones await them in the terminal, a Carnival
official has said.
Passengers had reported sewage on the floors, poor sanitation and access to toilets, and lengthy queues for food.
Some lined the decks as the 900-ft (275m) ship docked, waving and cheering at people on shore.
Chants of "Let me off, let me off!" could be heard coming from the ship as they waited to disembark.
Carnival Corp which operates the ship, was also the owner of
Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground off the Italian coast
and sank last year, killing 32 people.
'Nightmare'
Passenger Zeshan Sharif tells the BBC conditions on board have been tough
The company added it would take four to five hours to get all
passengers off the ship. They have already been cleared by customs
officials.
Hospitality staff will be sent on early holiday with full pay
or transferred to other ships, depending on the length remaining in
their contracts, Carnival Senior Vice-President Terry Thornton told
reporters.
Once they are off the ship, passengers will be taken by bus
either to Galveston, Texas, which is about seven hours away, or to New
Orleans, where the firm said it booked 1,500 hotel rooms. New Orleans is
two hours away.
Passenger Janie Baker told NBC by phone on Thursday that
conditions on the ship were "extremely terrible''. There was no
electricity and few working toilets, she said.
Ms Baker described using plastic bags to go to the toilet and that she had seen a woman pass out while waiting for food.
"It's just a nightmare,'' she said.
Past mechanical problems
Ms Baker said she and her friends slept with their life vests one night because the ship was listing.
Passengers will be offered a full refund and discounts on
future cruises. Carnival announced on Wednesday they would each get an
additional $500 (£322) in compensation.
Passengers have slept on deck in makeshift tents
But the firm has disputed the accounts describing the ship as
filthy, saying employees were doing everything they could to ensure
people were comfortable.
Carnival has cancelled more than a dozen planned voyages
aboard the Triumph, while acknowledging that the crippled ship had other
mechanical problems in the weeks before the fire.
Spokesman Vance Gulliksen said Triumph had an earlier
electrical problem with the ship's alternator but that repairs were
completed by 2 February. He said there was no evidence linking the
previous problem to Sunday's fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the fire.
No-one was injured in the blaze, but one passenger with a
pre-existing medical condition was taken off the ship as a precaution.
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