Bid to salvage Costa Concordia begins
Print Edition
ITALY’S ill-fated Costa Concordia cruise ship floated for the first time yesterday since it crashed in 2012, its rust-colored hull emerging from the waves off the Tuscan island of Giglio as an unprecedented salvage operation began.
“The ship is floating and is well balanced. We’re extremely pleased so far,” Franco Porcellacchia, the chief engineer of the project, said as the wrecked vessel — the length of three football fields — inched upwards.
The 114,500-ton vessel rose around two meters off the artificial platform on which it has rested since it was righted in September. It was then towed slightly away from the coastline for the re-floating to continue.
Children in swimming costumes eating ice-cream pointed from the shore as water cascaded out of the tanks attached to the ship like giant armbands to float the wreck.
Divers who had worked to prepare the operation through the night could be seen returning to port on a dinghy.
Media crews from around the world crowded on to the port to watch the resurrection of the luxury liner, which sank after hitting rocks on January 13, 2012, in a tragedy which left 32 people dead.
The liner — twice as big as the Titanic — will be refloated in five-six days and then be towed away for scrapping to a port in Genoa in northern Italy.
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