Ruins of the Costa Concordia: Inside the now wrecked vessel which once boasted a spa, casino and theatre (but may still surrender a treasure trove worth £10million)
- Starboard side completely caved in, crushing cabins, bars, theatre, spa and casino
- Treasure haul worth more than £10 million in jewellery, cash and 6,000 works of art could be retrieved
- Operation can begin to find two missing victims of disaster, after ship sunk in January 2012
- Rescue operation is expected to be most expensive maritime wreck recovery ever
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With its caved in sides, crumpled metal and grimy veneer, this is all that is left of the once glorious Costa Concordia cruise ship.
The watery wreck was upright for the first time since the January 13, 2012, after it sank in a disaster that killed 32 people near Giglio Island, Italy.
After an arduous rescue mission, the starboard side was finally pulled upright, revealing extensive damage and debris, a far cry from its previous grand appearance.
Now a treasure haul worth more than £10 million in jewellery, cash and 6,000 works of art could be retrieved in a search operation, after they were left aboard as the terrified 4,200 passengers fled the sinking liner in January 2012.
The salvaged wreck: The Costa Concordia is now a grimy shell of its former vast glory
The starboard side housed passengers' cabins, and was a popular spot filled with theatres, bars, shops and an expansive atrium.
The crushed portion of the cruise vessel previously boasted a 'spectacular' expanse of boutiques and shops.
Winding staircases, intricate ceiling patterns and plush chairs dotted about would have greeted guests who wanted to shop until they dropped.
And when passengers grew tired of browsing, they could drop in to either the Classic Dublin Bar, or the Europa Bar, which offered a well stocked bar and comfortable seats.
The sweeping three-tiered Atene Theatre was also destroyed the night the ship was plunged into the water.
The Casino Barcelona did not survive the disaster, as slot machines, games tables and roulette wheels were all lost in the disaster.
As engineers worked for 19 hours on the 'parbuckling' mission to save the vessel, relatives faced yet more of an anxious wait to see if the bodies of their missing loved ones would be found.
The righting of the ship now allows for a renewed search for the two bodies that were never recovered and for the ship to eventually be towed away and broken up for scrap.
The relatives of the last missing victims of the Concordia tragedy arrived on the island as attempts to find the two remaining bodies were renewed.
The Europa Bar (left) was destroyed when the
ship sank while the three-tiered Atene Theatre was ruined when the ship
hit the reef and caved in the starboard side
The glittering Europa Atrium was severely
damaged, as was the plush casino, as bother were housed in the part of
the ship that was most badly-caved in
Elio Vincenzi’s wife, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, was on a cruise to celebrate her 50th birthday when the ship went down, and disappeared after returning to her cabin to get a jacket.
Mr Vincenzi arrived with daughter Stefania, who was also on the ship but survived, and is now competing in the Miss Italia pageant in her mother's memory.
Mr Vincezi said he was ‘stupefied’ when he saw the ship. 'I didn’t believe that it was possible to do what they have done.’
'When I saw it before, on its side, it was like a wounded animal. When we arrived this time, it was misty, and it was like a dream, it looked like the ship was alive.'
The widower said the operation had given him new hope and he may be able to lead authorities to where his wife’s remains are.
'I am quite optimistic, he said. ‘I think I know where she is- at the back of the ship in an area that was submerged. In a phone call she made on the night she gave indications that she was about to get into a boat. If she’s not there I pray they find her somewhere else. I need to cut the cord.'
The brother of heroic Indian waiter Russel Ribello, who stayed behind on the ship to help guests, said he hoped the search would yield fruit within days.
The grand Berlino bar and many of the cabins
were all on the starboard side, which was the side that sank into the
water off Italy's coast last January
The cruise liner even had its own Formula 1
simulator and wellness spa inside - but all have been lost to a watery
grave after the ship sank near Giglio Island
The Concordia salvage is expected to
be the most expensive maritime wreck recovery ever
'But we
don’t know if it will be two days, three days, four days. Then the
search will begin and we hope we will all be able to go home.'It will also enable recovery crews to go from cabin to cabin opening safes so they can to return the valuables that passengers left behind in their frantic nighttime escape.
Three art exhibitions, including ancient sculptures, 19th century ceramics and precious crystal artefacts, were on display on the night of the tragedy, as well as modern masterpieces and digital artworks.
The ship also had a permanent collection of Japanese art, adding up to a total value to Euro 3million (£2.5 million).
Passengers left behind an estimated Euro 4 million (£3.3million) or an average of Euro 1,000 in cash each. The casinos and jewellery shops on board also held around Euro 2million (£1.6million) in their tills.
In the ship’s vault was between 20 and 40,000 Euro in cash as an emergency fund.
Authorities said they would soon be able to open the safes that were in each cabin in order to return items of financial or sentimental value.
The severely damaged side of the stricken Costa
Concordia is visible after the parbuckling operation succesfully
uprighted the ship
The Costa Concordia's pool can be seen on the top deck, as the starboard side, which housed casinos, cabins and a theatre
‘They will be catalogued and photographed with the cabin number so we can return everything to its rightful owner.’
While possessions in the safes will be relatively simple to recuperate, many personal items in the cabins, will have been damaged by the salt water and will not have survived the ordeal, organisers admitted.
Project manager Franco Porcellacchia said: ‘Many items have been dispersed into the sea or irreversibly damaged in the months since the shipwreck. We have to remember that it has been underwater at a 65 degree angle for 20 months.’
The Concordia salvage is expected to be the most expensive maritime wreck recovery ever, with costs that exceed 600 million euros ($800 million) and account for more than half of an overall insurance loss of more than $1.1 billion.
Premier Enrico Letta personally thanked Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's civil protection agency who oversaw the project.
Letta said the operation had demonstrated what it means to take responsibility for something, regardless of how risky or how high the stakes are.
'Instead today, thanks to all your work and thanks to this concept of assuming responsibility' Italy's reputation has been restored, Letta told Gabrielli at a ceremony at the government palace in Rome.
Let the hunt begin: The missing bodies of victim
Russel Rebello, who was a crew member on Costa Concordia, and Maria
Grazia Trecarichi who was celebrating her birthday onboard the cruise,
can now be looked for after the ship was successfully righted
Nick Sloane, the South African chief salvage master, received a hero's welcome when he came ashore from the floating barge that served as the operation's command center.
'She was heavier than I expected,' Sloane told reporters after a few hours of sleep. 'But you have to be patient. You can't do it with a stopwatch.'
The Concordia's submerged side suffered significant damage during the 20 months it bore the weight of the 115,000-ton, 300-meter-long (1,000-foot-long) ship on the reef.
The daylong operation to right it had stressed that flank as well. Exterior balconies were mangled and entire sections looked warped, although officials said the damage probably looked worse than it really was.
The damage must be repaired to stabilize the ship so it can withstand the coming winter, when seas and winds will whip the luxury liner.
The starboard side must also be stabilized so crews can affix tanks that will help float the ship off the seabed when it comes time to tow it sometime next year.
Part of the previously submerged, severely damaged right side of the Costa Concordia cruise ship is seen in upright position
The crippled cruise ship was pulled completely
upright early Tuesday after a complicated, 19-hour operation to wrench
it from its side where it capsized last year
It was the first time the procedure, known as parbuckling, had been carried out on a vessel as large as Costa Concordia
The operation had been expected to take no more than 12 hours but expanded to 19 after an initial weather delay and emergency maintenance issues involving the vast system of steel cables, pulleys and counterweights that were used to roll the half-submerged carcass of steel upright.
Many disasters have their heroes, but some also have their villains.
Captain Francesco Schettino was at the command of the huge cruise liner when it hit rocks and sank off the island of Giglio in January 2012 after an ill-judged sail by salute.
He is accused of causing the accident and abandoning ship but has insisted he has been made a scapegoat, and that a series of errors by others and his employer itself contributed to the disaster.
The disgraced captain has said that he saved lives by maneuvering the stricken ship toward Giglio's port rather than letting it sink in the open sea, and that the reef he rammed into wasn't on his nautical charts.
Schettino's trial resumes Monday on the mainland, where he is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all its 4,200 passengers and crew had been evacuated.
Five other Costa employees were convicted of manslaughter in a plea bargain and were sentenced to less than three years apiece - sentences that enraged some survivors as being far too lenient.
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