The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, built in 2006, was one of the ten largest ships in the world. And on January 13, 2012, Costa Concordia hit a stone reef, becoming the largest cruise ship in the world to crash.
The disaster occurred at ten in the evening local time near the Italian village of Giglio Porto, Tuscany. Most passengers of the ship dined at the restaurant while the ship jumped on the reef and began to sink. It would seem that the conditions for the rescue operation are favorable, but the crew of the cruise ship behaved extremely unprofessionally. Fifteen minutes after the collision, the captain of Costa Concordia announced that there were minor problems with the generator on the ship. After half an hour, he repeated information about the generator malfunction. And only closer to 22, when the ship's roll reached 30 degrees, there was a signal for passengers to leave the ship. The rescue operation itself began already late at night, although the coast guard had previously contacted the liner, clarifying whether help was needed. As a result, 30 people died, and two to this day are reported as missing.
By the end of summer, the ship itself was still not removed from the reef. After the completion of the fuel pumping work, it was announced who won the tender for lifting and evacuating the liner. The winner was the American company Titan Salvage. In June, specialists began dismantling Costa Concordia. It is planned that the work will last about a year. At the moment, the mast and the huge pool, which was located on the upper deck of a luxury liner, have been dismantled. As the specialists of the company explain, to begin with their task is to lighten the ship as much as possible and at the same time make sure that it does not begin to slide to a depth. After that, an underwater platform will be built, equipped with pontoons filled with water. It will become a support for the sunken ship, and pontoons will help give it a vertical position. In this form, the ship will be towed to one of the Italian ports.
