Italian coastguard heard pleading with liner captain

Two firefighters watch the Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off the west coast of Italy, at Giglio island January 17, 2012.

GIGLIO, Italy Jan 17 (Reuters) - Italian coastguards pleaded angrily with the captain of a stricken super-liner to return to his ship, according to recordings released on Tuesday as divers found five more bodies in the half-submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia.

The discoveries took the known death toll to 11, leaving 24 people, including a number of German tourists, unaccounted for four days after the giant cruiser carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew was ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.

Captain Francesco Schettino is in jail, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.

On Tuesday, rescuers used explosives to blast through the maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive. Inside the wreck heavy floating furniture and pitch-black conditions made conditions very dangerous.

A tearful firefighter told Reuters: "Virtually all the dry part has been searched. It would need a miracle to find anyone alive in the wet part." No survivors have been found since Sunday.

Before the five bodies were found on Tuesday, those missing were 14 German, five Italian, four French and two American passengers and four crew from Italy, Peru, India and Hungary.

Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before all his passengers and crew scrambled off.

At an appearance before a magistrate, Schettino said he believed he should be credited with saving "hundreds, if not thousands of lives" because he brought the ship close to shore after it hit a rock, lawyer Bruno Leporatti said.

Schittino also claimed that he did not abandon the ship while passengers were still aboard.

But newspaper Corriere della Sera released what it said was a recording of ship-to-shore radio communications in which the enraged coastguards repeatedly order him back on board.

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!" one coastguard says.

Speaking by radio from a lifeboat, Schettino pleads: "Do you realise that it is dark and we can't see anything?"

The coastguard shouts back: "So, what do you want to do, to go home, Schettino?! It's dark and you want to go home? Go to the bow of the ship where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done, how many people there are, and what they need! Now!"

Officials did not confirm the tape's origins but other shouts heard in the background added authenticity. The Coast Guard official on the tape told a local newspaper he could tell by the "tone of the captain's voice" that something was very wrong. Schettino's lawyer said he would not comment.

The owners of the 114,500-tonne vessel - the biggest passenger ship ever wrecked and twice the tonnage of the Titanic - accused their captain of causing the disaster by sharply deviating from the charted course.

The ship foundered after striking a rock as dinner was being served on Friday night. The owners say the captain swung inshore to "make a bow" to the islanders, who included a retired Italian admiral. Investigators say it was within 150 metres of shore.

Schettino has denied the charges and was questioned by magistrates on Tuesday morning.

Three controlled blasts were detonated early on Tuesday to allow firefighters and scuba divers to enter inaccessible parts of the ship.

"Now we will have better access to the gathering points on the ship, where it seems there might be more chance of finding someone, dead or alive," said firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari.

"They will take micro-cameras in there, and we will be simultaneously looking at the few remaining dry areas and also the wet areas," he said. The weather improved slightly from Monday but seas were still choppy.