Raise the Costa Concordia: A background on the ill-fated cruise ship
Two and a half years after the Costa Concordia tragedy, efforts are restarting again for a final stage operation to float the cruise ship out of the water and tow it to Genoa in Northern Italy, where it will be cut up. We trace the background of the ill-fated Italian vessel.
The event
The vessel had crashed into rocks and sunk off the coast of Giglio Island, a tranquil little island near Tuscany, in January 2012. It was Friday the 13th.
It had been carrying over 4,200 people from 70 countries, on a week-long cruise in the Mediterranean. A total of 32 people perished when the ship sank.
People sunbath on rocks facing the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship on July 13, 2014 at a beach of the Giglio Island. — PHOTO: AFP
The order to evacuate the ship came only just over an hour after the impact.
In a recovery operation of an unprecedented scale, the ship was brought upright last September in a 19-hour operation, after lying on its right side for over a year.
Titanic of the 21st century?
The massive vessel measures 290m – more than two and a half lengths of a football field – is twice as big as the infamous Titanic.
Eerily, the accident happened just three months before the 100th year anniversary of the Titanic tragedy in the Atlantic.
The similarities do not end there. A passenger reported that Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, the theme song from the movie Titanic, was playing in one of the dining rooms when the accident happened.
via Raise the Costa Concordia: A background on the ill-fated cruise ship.
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