Costa Concordia: Italy marks ten years since cruise ship disaster

Table Of Content

• In search of wildlife on a one-day cruise off the coast of Cornwall, UK
• The 50 best Hollywood books of all time
• Experts to testify for defense in sentencing trial for man who killed Nassau County deputy
• Cruise ships will be diverted away from Venice, says Italian government
• Regulatory and industry response
• Trials
• For Reporter, Cruise Ship Disaster Is A Local Story
• Environmental concerns and salvage

People were left to clamber down a rope ladder over a distance equivalent to 11 stories. The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner. “I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats. Following the conclusion of the righting operation, the ship was kept on the platform while further inspections were made and the starboard sponsons attached.

10 years later, Costa Concordia survivors share their stories from doomed cruise ship - TODAY

10 years later, Costa Concordia survivors share their stories from doomed cruise ship.

Posted: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]

In search of wildlife on a one-day cruise off the coast of Cornwall, UK

The crash tore a massive gash in its hull and the ship veered sharply as the water poured in, eventually keeling over and sparking a panicky evacuation. Sloane says the priority is to remove the ship in one piece in order to minimize impact on the environment. Weather permitting, the Costa Concordia should be refloated and towed to a mainland port by early next year. The shipwreck has altered the local economy; Mayor Ortelli says tourism income has dropped by 50 percent. Traditional nature lovers who came for a week or more have been replaced by day-trippers. Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of US-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered.

Passenger Who Suffers PTSD After Deadly Crash of Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Awarded $105K - Newsweek

Passenger Who Suffers PTSD After Deadly Crash of Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Awarded $105K.

Posted: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The 50 best Hollywood books of all time

The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The final mad scramble to evacuate the listing liner and then the extraordinary generosity of Giglio islanders who offered shoes, sweatshirts and shelter until the sun rose and passengers were ferried to the mainland. Few of the 500-odd residents of the fishermen’s village will ever forget the freezing night of Jan. 13, 2012, when the Costa Concordia shipwrecked, killing 32 people and upending life on the island for years.

Experts to testify for defense in sentencing trial for man who killed Nassau County deputy

"I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after," he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats. It will also honour the 4,200 survivors and the residents of Giglio who took in passengers and crew, offering clothes and shelter until passengers could return to the mainland. Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it! “Every one of us here has a tragic memory from then,” said Mario Pellegrini, 59, who was deputy mayor in 2012 and was the first civilian to climb onto the cruise ship after it struck the rocks near the lighthouses at the port entrance. The lifeboats wouldn't drop down because the ship was tilted on its side, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on the side of the ship for hours in the cold.

Cruise ships will be diverted away from Venice, says Italian government

The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger.

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 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. 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 16 September 2013, the parbuckle salvage of the ship began, and by the early hours of 17 September, the ship was set upright on her underwater cradle.

Trials

But the temporary decision prevents cruise ships from even approaching the iconic St. Mark's Square. A vice president of Legambiente Liguria told Fortune the organization is considering forming a petition to ask the Italian government to prevent cruise ship operators from parking their ships near Italy's most scenic locations. Six months after one of the biggest passenger shipwrecks in recent history, relatives of the dead attended a memorial service Friday near the site of the disaster. Italy will mark the 10th anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster on Thursday with a daylong commemoration. Thirty-two people died when the ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio.

In July 2014, the ship was refloated using sponsons (flotation tanks) welded to her sides, and was towed 320 kilometres (200 mi) to her home port of Genoa for scrapping, which was completed in July 2017. And three giant Costa cruise ships are anchored near La Spezia, "motors running, lights on, and with small crews aboard," Fortune reporter Eric J. Lyman wrote. Legambiente, an Italian environmental lobby group, estimates that around 100 cruise ships of various sizes are parked in or near Italian ports. According to Italian media reports, they include MSC Cruise ships near Civitavecchia, Rome’s main port, the Adriatic port city of Trieste, the Sicilian ports of Palermo and Syracuse, and Venice. Costa, owner of the three ships anchored off the Gulf of Poets, reportedly has other ships parked outside nearby Genoa, at Civitavecchia, and Naples. Ships from smaller cruise companies have reportedly been spotted parked near tourist destinations including Brindisi, Catania, and Livorno.

Captain Francesco Schettino has been arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship. Gathered here are images of the Costa Concordia, as efforts are still underway to find the fourteen passengers that remain missing. For Concordia survivor Georgia Ananias, the COVID-19 infections are just the latest evidence that passenger safety still isn’t a top priority for the cruise ship industry. Passengers aboard the Concordia were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat after the captain steered the ship close too shore in a stunt.

With Giglio Island lying in a protected marine area, environmental issues relating to the Concordia wreck were of particular concern. The vessel was on the edge of an underwater cliff, leading to worries that the ship might slip and break apart, causing an oil spill. To lessen any potential damage, oil booms were placed around the wreckage, and in February 2012 salvage workers began removing more than 2,000 tons of fuel; the undertaking was completed the following month. Schettino was convicted of multiple manslaughter as well as abandoning ship after leaving before all the passengers had reached safety. Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, cruise ships brought millions of tourists into Venice, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, every year.

In a first step to prevent pollution of the shore and assist in a refloat the ship, its oil and fuel tanks were emptied. Locals are unhappy about unsightly liners marring the seaside views, making constant sound, and the potential for their negative environmental impact on the surrounding towns, according to a Fortune report published Monday. Precision sensors attached to the sides of the ship will monitor for possible cracks in the crippled hull, while underwater cameras will watch for debris washing out of the vessel amid fears toxic waste could spill into the sea. There are going to be substantial risks before the Costa Concordia is gone for good, however.

“It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said. The four ministers have also called for ideas to create a new external terminal for ships and "solve the problem of the transit of large ships in Venice in a structural and definitive manner". Cruise ships will no longer be allowed to sail near the centre of Venice, Italy's government has announced. The struggle reflects the difficult reality of an industry battered by the pandemic.

But after eight years in the US and then Italian court system, they lost their case. GIGLIO PORTO, Italy — The curvy granite rocks of the Tuscan island of Giglio lay bare in the winter sun, no longer hidden by the ominous, stricken cruise liner that ran aground in the turquoise waters of this marine sanctuary ten years ago. A decade after that harrowing night, the survivors are grateful to have made it out alive. None of the survivors who spoke with Cobiella have been on a cruise since that day. The calamity caused changes in the cruise industry like carrying more lifejackets and holding emergency drills before leaving port. 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.

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. "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.