Italy's giant cruise wreck begins final voyage as survivors look on

Table Of Content

• Cruise Ship's Salvage A Wreck For Italian Island
• The Wrecked Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Is Finally Being Towed Away
• People think old age starts later than they used to, study finds
• Criminal proceedings against officers
• 'We all suffer from PTSD': 10 years after the Costa Concordia cruise disaster, memories remain
• Cruise ships anchored off the Italian coast are annoying locals
• Children of Flint water crisis make change as young environmental and health activists

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.

Cruise Ship's Salvage A Wreck For Italian Island

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.

The Wrecked Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Is Finally Being Towed Away

This cleared the way to arrange for the ultimate salvaging and scrapping of the ship. Court-appointed experts have pinned the blame for the shipwreck on Schettino, but they also concluded that the crew and Costa Crociere SpA, a unit of Miami-based Carnival Corp., committed blunders and safety breaches that contributed to the disaster. His lawyer, Francesco Pepe, told reporters the judge rejected the defense’s request at Wednesday’s hearing to throw out the charge of abandoning the ship. The judge last week rejected Schettino’s plea-bargain bid, which would have drastically reduced his sentence in case of a conviction. He contends he is innocent and is being made a scapegoat, insisting that the reef wasn’t marked on the ship’s navigational charts. He has also depicted himself as a hero in the tragedy, saying that he skillfully steered the stricken ship closer to Giglio’s harbor, thus facilitating the rescue of the survivors.

People think old age starts later than they used to, study finds

Cruise ship shop worker Fabio Costa said when people realised there was a serious problem, there were scenes of desperation. Giglio Island's nature-loving tourists have been replaced by day-trippers who want a look at the massive wreck of the Costa Concordia. The mammoth vessel is an eyesore and oppressive reminder of tragedy for local residents. A huge hunk of granite weighing some 80 tons is embedded in the hull of the marooned ship. "This was a banal accident in which, fate would have it, there was a breakdown in communication between people. And this created misunderstandings and anger," Schettino said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Children of Flint water crisis make change as young environmental and health activists

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 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 Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse HISTORY - History

The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse HISTORY.

Posted: Wed, 23 Jun 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]

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".

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.

"The worst case scenario is that the ship falls apart during the first six hours as it's raised off the platform -- or that it breaks up somewhere off the coast of Corsica, which is where the Mediterranean's currents are the strongest," CNN continues. Some environmental groups, like Greenpeace, are also concerned that the Costa Concordia will leave a trail of leaky toxic waste in its wake, CNN adds. Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of U.S.-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered. But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case.