Underwater cameras capture the eerie corridors on the Costa Concordia and the debris of shattered holidays on seabed on eve of operation to raise striken cruise ship

Cause

Ship has been marooned and half-sunk off the coast of Tuscany for 20 months
Thirty-two people lost their lives on January 13, 2012
The luxury liner is going to finally be lifted upright in the largest and most expensive maritime salvage operation in history

On the night before the operation begins to finally raise the Costa Concordia, haunting underwater footage shows the doomed cruise ship lying on the seabed which is littered with shoes, mattresses and deck chairs.

The ship has been marooned and half-sunk off the coast of Tuscany for 20 months – a reminder of the tragedy which saw 32 people lose their lives on January 13, 2012.

Tomorrow, the luxury liner will finally be lifted upright in the largest and most expensive maritime salvage operation in history.

Haunting: A deck chair lies upside down on the seabed at the spot where the Costa Concordia sank

The footage shows the former deck where passengers once sunbathed turned on its side.

While dinner plates, cutlery, shoes and sun loungers lay scattered across the seabed for fish to swim around.

The cost of lifting the giant cruise liner, which sank off the coast of Tuscany in January 2012, off the sea bed, has ballooned to £500million – a figure that could rise if there are problems, organisers admitted.

Thirty-two people died when the ship, with 4,200 passengers onboard, hit rocks and ran aground off
the island of Giglio after an ill-judged ‘salute’ to inhabitants by the ship’s captain.

The ship has been marooned and half-sunk off the coast of Tuscany for 20 months

The footage shows the former deck where passengers once sunbathed turned on its side

Divers carry out a search of the shipwreck which lies off the coast of Tuscany

Still looking: Divers swim around the Costa Concordia searching for two unaccounted people whose bodies were never found

It will be rolled onto the platform in a manoeuvre known as parbuckling.

Workers will look for the bodies of two people, an Italian and an Asian unaccounted for since the disaster, as machines haul the 114,000-tonne ship upright and underwater cameras comb the seabed.

Divers have pumped 18,000 tonnes of cement into bags below the ship to support it and prevent it
from breaking up.

Thirty-two people died when the ship, with 4,200 passengers onboard, hit rocks and ran aground off the island of Giglio

A buoyancy device acting ‘like a neck brace for an injured patient’ will hold together the ship’s bow, and fishing nets will catch debris as it rises from beneath the ship, said Nicholas Sloane, senior salvage master at Titan Salvage.

The salvage team will go through the ship cabin by cabin and hand over items found on board to the Italian state prosecutor, and the vessel will be towed away to be dismantled.

The greatest fear for environmentalists is that the ship will break up under the massive force needed to haul it upright.

Uncharted territory: The international team of engineers will use a never-before attempted strategy to set upright the luxury liner

Huge task: The Costa Concordia cruise ship could be upright again next week, nearly two years after the liner capsized and killed at least 30 people

Tension: Observers will hold their breath during the difficult and never-before-tried operation to salvage the Costa Concordia is attempted

The Italian Department for the Environment have also highlighted the danger of pollution as thousands of tonnes of water inside the ship pours out.

The ship’s fuel has been removed over months by divers and construction workers toiling 24 hours a day, but chemicals and toxins from rotting food and drink remain.

Arpat, the Regional Environmental Agency of Tuscany, said it ‘will provide a sampling of the water in the affected area both during the rotation and in the days to follow, in order to identify the extent, the extension and duration of pollution.’

Enormity: An aerial view shows the huge scale of Costa Concordia – equivalent to a floating city – set against the backdrop of the houses on Giglio Island

Eventually, in a secondary operation, the cruise liner will be refloated and towed away to be broken up for scrap metal.

Four Costa Concordia crew members and a Costa Cruises company official were sentenced to jail in
July for their part in the accident, and the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino remains on trial for manslaughter and causing the loss of the ship.

The captain is accused of abandoning ship before all crew and passengers had been rescued.

Unprecedented: The cost of refloating the Costa Concordia has risen to £500million and has involved 500 engineers

Four Costa Concordia crew members and a Costa Cruises company official were sentenced to jail in July for their part in the accident, and the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino (above) remains on trial for manslaughter and causing the loss of the ship

Passengers onboard the cruise ship Costa Concordia wait to be evacuated after it ran aground

A coastguard’s angry phone order to him – ‘Get back on board, damn it!’ – became a catchphrase in Italy after the accident.

A 500-member salvage team from 24 nations will be conducting the operation to move the ship, known in nautical terms as parbuckling, before the autumn storm season arrives, when winds and powerful waves risk battering it to the point it won’t hold together.

Dozens of crank-like pulleys will start slowly rotating the ship upright at a rate of about 3metres per hour.

Steel chains weighing 17,000 tons have been looped under the vessel to help pull it upright. Tanks
filled with water on the exposed side will also help rotate it upward.

Although parbuckling is a tested way to set upright capsized vessels, the operation has never been applied to a huge cruise liner.

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78 Underwater cameras capture the eerie corridors on the Costa Concordia and the debris of shattered holidays on seabed on eve of operation to raise striken cruise ship

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