A picture released on Thursday by the Italian Carabinieri shows divers preparing to inspect the Costa Concordia cruise ship, at Giglio Island, in 2012.
AFP/Reuters/Rome
Italian police have released footage of inside the ghostly shell of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, ahead of an operation to float and remove the wreck from the Tuscan island of Giglio.
Eerie underwater images shot by police divers show rotting sofas, the majestic columns of a perfume shop and – above water – the ship’s blue and green atrium, with painted pictures of majestic sea-side towns and white boats skimming the waves.
A reception area is seen with computers, a wide-screen television screen and a vase of plastic flowers which oddly appear to have survived unscathed as the ship rolled on to its side in a nighttime accident in 2012 and sank, killing 32 people.
Books, pillows and other objects litter the decks ground of the enormous vessel, which was twice the size of the Titanic, and a life jacket chest with the ship’s name on it gapes empty.
The ship was hoisted upright from its watery grave in September in the biggest-ever salvage operation of its kind, during which the remains of one of two missing victims were discovered.
Engineers have finished attaching the huge tanks to its sides which will be used to float the wreck, which is expected to be towed away by the end of the month.
The last of 30 stabilising devices or “sponsons” was attached to the wreck on Thursday and technicians will now start to test all the systems for the final refloating, the Concordia Wreck Removal Project said in a statement.
“Following installation of the last sponson, we can start the countdown to refloating and final departure of the wreck,” Michael Thamm, chief executive of Costa Cruises, a unit of the liner’s owner Carnival Corp, said in the statement.
The organisers said the last phases of the project to remove the 114,500-tonne vessel, the largest maritime salvage in history, would be explained in detail in the next few days.
A consortium including oil services group Saipem and the Genoa-based companies Mariotti and San Giorgio will carry out the dismantling.
The ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, is currently on trial accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.