Crippled cruise liner to dock in Seychelles port

A crippled Italian cruise liner with over 1,000 passengers and crew was approaching port Thursday in the Seychelles, three days after a fire disabled it in pirate-infested waters, officials said.

"The boat has just passed in front of the airport, it's very close now... The ship should arrive around 9am (0500 GMT)," said Seychelles presidential spokeswoman Srdjana Janosevic.

Passengers have spent most of the time on the Costa Allegra's decks in sweltering temperatures since an engine fire knocked out power on Monday, cutting electricity, air conditioning and shutting bathrooms.

A first aid tent was set up at the port in case of emergency.

"The weakest passengers will be disembarked first, there will be ambulances standing by, but we were prepared to airlift anyone who needed urgent medical attention," said another presidential spokeswoman, Nada Francourt.

Italian investigators also awaited the arrival in the capital Victoria of the liner, which belongs to the same fleet as the doomed Costa Concordia that smashed into rocks off Tuscany last month.

The fire broke out near the ship's generators in the engine room as the Costa Allegra was making its way from Madagascar, which it departed on Saturday, to the Seychelles, where it had been due to arrive on Tuesday.

Emergency crews on board extinguished the fire after a few hours and no-one was injured, but the liner was left powerless and adrift.

A French tuna fishing boat, the Trevignon, responded to the Costa Allegra's mayday call and was towing the boat solo, crawling along at a speed of around six knots (11 kilometres or seven miles an hour) through calm seas.

The Costa Allegra is owned by the same company as the much larger Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio and keeled over last month with 4,229 people on board in an accident that claimed 32 lives.

Seychelles authorities have prepared hundreds of hotel rooms on the idyllic Indian Ocean island and secured seats on aircraft to fly the Costa Allegra's 1,000 passengers and crew back home.