Cruise Ship's Salvage A Wreck For Italian Island : NPR

Table Of Content

• Costa Concordia: human remains found at cruise ship wreck site
• Costa Concordia engineers exhausted and relieved after successful salvage
• Raising Costa Concordia - timelapse video
• People think old age starts later than they used to, study finds
• ‘Nothing left’: After California Yacht Club fire, residents mourn loss of a beloved spot
• Haitians scramble to survive, seeking food, water and safety as gang violence chokes the capital

In July 2006 the vessel undertook its maiden voyage, a seven-day cruise of the Mediterranean Sea, with stops in Italy, France, and Spain. Work has begun to remove the tons of rocky reef embedded into the Concordia cruise ship's hull, off Giglio Island in Italy. But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats.

Costa Concordia: human remains found at cruise ship wreck site

The island was notified of the news – a landmark feat of engineering and big step towards the removal of the Concordia from Tuscan waters in one piece – by a foghorn that sounded shortly after 4am and was heard across the port and beyond. The MS Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship that killed 32 people when it sank off the coast off Isola del Giglio in 2012, has just been sitting off the Tuscan coast ever since. This morning, though, the ship was successfully refloated, the Guardian reports. Environmentalists are relieved since the ship has been marring a marine sanctuary for more than two years, while local residents say they are looking forward to no longer having to see a giant wreck each time they look out to sea. The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection.

Costa Concordia engineers exhausted and relieved after successful salvage

Rose Metcalf, a dancer who had been performing on the ship, was one of the last people to be winched to safety by a helicopter after clinging to the stricken vessel. Elizabeth Nanni, of Isola del Giglio Tourist Information, said those who arrived on the island were survivors in a state of shock, ''desperate people looking for each other'' and people suffering from hypothermia after jumping into the sea. "It was difficult to walk. First it moved once, then to the left and then more on the right. The boat was tipping one side. You could see the ship was sinking more and more. In half an hour it sank halfway into the water," she said.

Raising Costa Concordia - timelapse video

The cruise ship listed so badly to one side that some life boats couldn’t be launched, and many people aboard had to jump into the sea and swim to the tiny island in the dark. Schettino faces multiple manslaughter charges as well as charges of causing the accident and abandoning ship. He was released this week from house arrest, and in his first TV interview, he blamed his junior officers.

The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors. The ship's captain Francesco Schettino is on trial for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all the passengers had been evacuated - even though he has claimed that he fell into a lifeboat. An investigation focused on shortcomings in the procedures followed by Costa Concordia's crew and the actions of her captain, Francesco Schettino, who left the ship prematurely.

"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them." Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink.

Accidents and incidents

The five other defendants successfully sought plea bargains, which are now being handled separately. "To wake up every morning and to see this thing, from my point of view, it is terrible," says Matteo Bellomo, who has had a second home on Giglio for 50 years. "Every time you look at it, you think to the people there, and people that died, and to the two people they have not found." Four other crew members and an executive from the ship's owner Costa Crociere, the biggest cruise operator in Europe and part of the US giant Carnival, have already plea-bargained and been convicted on lesser charges. Gabrielli told journalists there was still "a lot of work to do" given that the ship remained off the coast. That includes ships operated by companies MSC Cruise ships and Costa, Fortune reported, some of which are docked near Rome's main port of Civitavecchia.

Traditional nature lovers who came for a week or more have been replaced by day-trippers. It's in Europe's biggest marine sanctuary, with crystal-clear waters rich in flora and fauna. Now, the marooned hulk dominates the Giglio skyline and has become a sinister attraction of what some call disaster tourism — drawing hundreds of gawking tourists who snap away at the photo opportunity. "When I was getting into the lifeboat amid all the chaos I thought this might be my last day alive," he said as he gazed out at the wreck from the port.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection. The total cost of the disaster, including victims' compensation, refloating, towing and scrapping costs, is estimated at $2 billion, more than three times the ship's $612 million construction cost. Costa Cruises offered compensation to passengers (to a limit of €11,000 per person) to pay for all damages, including the value of the cruise; one third of the survivors took the offer. The Costa Concordia was owned by Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & PLC. When launched in 2005, it was Italy’s largest cruise ship, measuring 951 feet (290 metres) long with a passenger capacity of 3,780; by comparison, the Titanic was 882.5 feet (269 metres) long and could accommodate up to 2,435 passengers. It featured four swimming pools, a casino, and reportedly the largest spa on a ship.

NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing. Costa Concordia was declared a "constructive total loss" by the cruise line's insurer, and her salvage was "one of the biggest maritime salvage operations".

Court hears how 32 died in Italy shipwreck - USA TODAY

Court hears how 32 died in Italy shipwreck.

Posted: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 07:00:00 GMT [source]

On that night, in an effort to entertain the passengers with a close-up view of the island, Capt. Francesco Schettino accidentally rammed the vessel into a rocky reef just a few dozen yards from shore. Thousands of passengers and crew made it to land safely but 32 people died, including a five-year-old girl. The bodies of two people – Maria Grazia Trecarichi, a Sicilian passenger, and Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter – have never been found. Their recovery was a priority of the parbuckling but engineers have not yet seen any sign of their remains in the wreck.

During this time, work also began to remove the vessel in what was the largest maritime salvage operation in history. It was not until September 2013 that the 114,000-ton Concordia was finally righted. The 19-hour process involved specially built underwater platforms, cranes, and some 500 people. In July 2014 the Concordia—outfitted with a number of steel containers serving as flotation devices—was towed to Genoa, Italy, where it was dismantled for scrap. With Giglio Island lying in a protected marine area, environmental issues relating to the Concordia wreck were of particular concern.

During the 19-month trial, prosecutors claimed that he was an “idiot,” while Schettino countered that his actions had saved lives and that he was being scapegoated. In addition, he noted the steering error by the helmsman, but a maritime expert testified that regardless of the mistake, the collision was unavoidable. In February 2015 Schettino was convicted on all charges and sentenced to more than 16 years in prison. He appealed the verdict, but it was upheld in May 2017; Schettino began serving his sentence shortly thereafter. In the coming months the team carrying out the salvage operation – Titan Salvage from the United States and the Italian engineering company Micoperi – will have to examine quite how damaged the starboard side of the ship is in order to decide how to proceed. Porcellacchia said that part of the hull looked "pretty bad", which might complicate the attachment of sponsons – large steel boxes – needed for the eventual refloating.