Costa Concordia salvage begins
20 months after it ran aground, engineering officials have lifted the cruise ship free of the rocks.
12:40 16 September 2013
Costa Concordia salvage operation, which is described as the most daunting and largest of its kind, has begun and is expected to last up to 12 hours. Officials have confirmed that the ship was successfully detached from the rocks and has been moved to a platform on the seabed. Italian Civil Protection Authority said that the operation was delayed by three hours due to the storm the previous night.
Sergio Girotto, one of the engineers who is working on the project, confirmed that the operation was going on smoothly.
"Everything is going according to plan, we are following the plan to sequence... There is no problem whatsoever."
The 32 people who were killed on January 2012 after the cruise ship ran aground off the Tuscan coast were never found. There are hopes that this operation will help recover at least some of the bodies but officials said on Monday there was no sign of them so far.
Five people were convicted of manslaughter in connection to the incident. Meanwhile, Francesco Schettino, the ship’s captain, is currently on trial for abandoning the ship and for manslaughter.