More than 4,000 passengers are disembarking from 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.
[
link to www.bbc.co.uk]
Last Edited by aqmah on 02/15/2013 12:26 AM
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