Italian cruise ship adrift off Seychelles taken in town

An Italian cruise ship left adrift in the Indian Ocean with more than 1,000 people on board following a power failure, has been taken in tow.A French fishing vessel is taking the Costa Allegra to a nearby island where passengers will be disembarked before being transferred to the Seychelles.A fire in the ship’s generator room on Monday caused it to lose all power. The ship is from the same fleet as the Costa Concordia, which capsized off the Italian coast in January, killing 32.The BBC’s Katy Watson on Seychelles says that the ship is being towed to the Desroches island, near Alphonse island, south-west of the Seychelles. Once there the passengers will be disembarked to the one hotel on the island, and then await transfer to the main Seychelles island of Mahe. Tugs sent from Mahe are due to meet up with the Costa Allegra at around 0900 GMT, our correspondent adds.The vessel has no air-conditioning or cooking facilities and an emergency generator powering the radio “could fail at any minute”, the Italian coast guard says.Earlier, Commander Cosimo Nicastro from the Italian coast guard confirmed that the French-registered ocean-going trawler had reached the ship.The ship’s owner, Costa Cruises, has stressed that the Allegra - which had been drifting about 32km (20 miles) from Alphonse Island, one of the atolls in the Seychelles - is steady and conditions are safe. No-one has been injured, officials said.