If maritime superstitions are to be believed, the Costa Concordia was doomed from the moment it was launched.

When a grand christening ceremony was held in July 2006 in the port of Civitavecchia, the ceremonial champagne bottle failed to smash against the hull of the luxury liner - now on its side in the sea as rescue workers hunt for missing passengers - and wet the bow.

In a video capturing the moment, some among the crowd - which included supermodel Eva Herzigová - can be heard gasping as the bottle is hurled from a height and bounces, unbroken, off the side.

It is a sign some seafarers consider to be a harbinger of bad luck. Ominously, the Titanic was never christened.

"It was born bad and ended up worse," the Italian newspaper Il Giornale pronounced in a headline about Friday's tragedy.

Just two years later, on November 22, 2008, the Costa Concordia suffered a second stroke of bad luck.

The ship was attempting to enter the post of Palermo, Sicily in a storm when it hit the dock and was damaged.

The latest accident occurred on Friday the 13th, a day some consider unlucky.

On Sunday, two South Korean honeymooners and an Italian crewman were rescued from the wreckage of the cruise ship wreck in Italy as emergency services found another two bodies, bringing the death toll to five.

Divers found two elderly men wearing lifejackets in a cabin in the rear of the submerged part of the 17-deck Costa Concordia, said the coastguard.

"I'm afraid that we could find others," Angelo Scarpa, one of the divers who recovered the bodies, said, as one Australian diving expert suggested it was "highly likely" that other passengers are trapped alive in air pockets on the vessel.

They had had to break the glass roof over one of the ship's dining rooms to get to them, said Scarpa. One victim was wearing a chain and the other had a wallet, which would help with identification, he added.

The divers would now focus on the dining areas in the search for more bodies, he added, as many passengers were eating when the boat hit the rocks.

Fire brigade spokesman Luca Cari said the rescued South Korean honeymooners had been evacuated by helicopter and were in "perfect condition".

"They were in their cabin, we still don't understand why," he added.

The rescued Italian, an officer responsible for passenger security on the vessel, was found after emergency crews spent hours trying to reach him after hearing his voice echoing in the massive ship.

More than a dozen people are still missing after the luxury liner, carrying more than 4200 passengers and crew, hit rocks just off the Tuscan island.

Rescuers said the search in the half-submerged ship was highly dangerous because the decks were at almost a 90-degree angle and there was a risk the ship could slip off the rocks it had struck and sink altogether.

Two French passengers and one Peruvian crew member were confirmed as dead on Saturday, apparently after jumping into the chilly Mediterranean waters with dozens of others in a chaotic evacuation.