Costa Concordia: Italy marks ten years since cruise ship disaster

Table Of Content

• Criminal proceedings against officers
• Earth Day: How a senator’s idea more than 50 years ago got people fighting for their planet
• Key dates in Costa Concordia shipwreck, trial and cleanup
• What's going to be different with the halving of Bitcoin this time?
• Securing wreck site and protecting environment
• The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse

She told the Guardian at the time how she was frantically asking everyone she knew whether they had news from her husband, while she waited at the port. The salvage of the Costa Concordia was the most expensive such operation in history, with an estimated cost of $1.2bn. The operation, led by a wisecracking South African named Nick Sloane, involved first moving the capsized vessel into an upright position, and then slowly shifting it into deeper water. In such an unprecedented operation, environmental contamination was a constant threat, with tonnes of rotting food, passenger belongings and other items still located on the vessel. Just as the ship was making its way north-west along the coastline, Schettino called for the vessel to be steered close to Giglio as a way to “salute” the island. Costa sent representatives to the ceremonies and issued a statement saying the company’s thoughts were with the victims and their relatives.

Criminal proceedings against officers

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. 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. 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. An investigation focused on shortcomings in the procedures followed by Costa Concordia's crew and the actions of her captain, Francesco Schettino, who left the ship prematurely.

Earth Day: How a senator’s idea more than 50 years ago got people fighting for their planet

Following the conclusion of the righting operation, the ship was kept on the platform while further inspections were made and the starboard sponsons attached. He said children and women were given priority when it came to allocating places on lifeboats, but the system proved to be difficult to implement because many men "weren't accepting this" because they wanted to remain together as a family, prompting "huge confusion". Four other crew members and an executive from the ship's owner Costa Crociere, the biggest cruise operator in Europe and part of the US giant Carnival, have already plea-bargained and been convicted on lesser charges. A Dutch tug boat and a Vanuatu-flagged one will then tow the 290-metre (951-foot) vessel away around 1000 GMT, while 12 other boats will sail in a convoy alongside, carrying divers, engineers, a medical team and environmental experts.

What happened to the Costa Concordia? Cruise.Blog - Cruise Blog

What happened to the Costa Concordia? Cruise.Blog.

Posted: Thu, 11 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Key dates in Costa Concordia shipwreck, trial and cleanup

Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink. "I think it’s the panic, the feeling of panic, is what’s carried through over 10 years," Ian Donoff, who was on the cruise with his wife Janice for their honeymoon, told Cobiella.

This captain made a horrible mistake, but we are not going to save lives if we don’t change the standards in the whole industry, not only of this particular captain,” Eaves said. "It was just said in court that musicians on board had more safety training than other crew members," Eaves told NBC. Dramatic openingSchettino himself has become a lightning rod for international disdain for having left the ship before everyone was evacuated. Monday’s hearing was the first and most important in a preliminary trial, aimed at establishing who should be indicted over the disaster. Images shot later by the coastguard would show divers in the sunken restaurant, battling through flotsam, searching for victims.

Kevin Rebello had become close to many Giglio residents and rescuers during the months that divers searched for his brother. And on Thursday, as he arrived for the commemorative Mass, he received an award from the Civil Protection Agency. 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.

"People disappeared in the dark, then reappeared again. They cried out 'mum where are you?'. I remember to this day the names people shouted out, looking for each other," said Magnotta, 51. As workers began to break apart the ship in Genoa, and they discovered the body of Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter. The married commander, now 54, was accompanied by his lover, Domnica Cemortan, a classically trained dancer from Moldova. The passengers, whose infections were found through random testing, were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, according to the Port of San Francisco. “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.

Securing wreck site and protecting environment

We are anxious to do that, but not so anxious to compromise on our will to change the industry for better standards,” John Arthur Eaves, Jr., an Alabama-based lawyer representing several American survivors of the disaster, told NBC News. "He rushed out barefoot in shorts and met a friend who lent him clothes... He helped people into lifeboats. ROME (AFP) - On the evening of Jan 13, 2012, Umberto Trotti heard the terrified cries of his wife and baby in the lifeboat below, and threw himself off the capsizing Italian cruise ship.

He left about 300 passengers on board the sinking vessel, most of whom were rescued by helicopter or motorboats in the area. Despite receiving its own share of criticism, Costa Cruises and its parent company, Carnival Corporation, did not face criminal charges. But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats. Evacuation was made even more chaotic by the ship listing so far to starboard, making walking inside very difficult and lowering the lifeboats on one side, near to impossible.

Tense Moment for Parents on Italy Cruise Ship Dock - Cruise Hive

Tense Moment for Parents on Italy Cruise Ship Dock.

Posted: Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

It happened on Friday evening and marked the start of hours of panic among the 4,000 people on board the cruise ship. In the next few days, Schettino, the eight other people accused, and the many survivors and families of victims, will learn if he will face charges over the deaths of 32 people after his ship run aground off Giglio island on Jan. 13. The Costa Concordia, a vast, luxury liner, had run aground off Italy's Giglio island and was toppling over into freezing waters, in a disaster that would leave 32 people dead. Thirty-two people died when the ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. 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. Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off.

Costa Cruises offered compensation to passengers (to a limit of €11,000 per person) to pay for all damages, including the value of the cruise; one third of the survivors took the offer. "Everybody was trying to get on the boats at the same time. When people had to get on the lifeboats they were pushing each other. It was a bit chaotic. We were trying to keep passengers calm but it was just impossible. Nobody knew what was going on." Monica, a German passenger who was in the cruise liner's theatre when the ship began to suffer problems, said it was hard to reach the lifeboats.

“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. 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. "We were on the same level as the water so some people started to swim because they weren't able to get on the lifeboats," said Mr Costa.

Evidence presented at the trial showed Schettino downplayed the severity of the situation in communications with the Coast Guard and delayed an evacuation order, then abandoned ship before all the passengers and crew were off. GIGLIO, Italy (AP) — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.

Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. GIGLIO, Italy — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors.

As the Costa Concordia made its final journey out of the port of Giglio, some survivors and families of victims looked on as a final farewell. In the aftermath of the disaster, legal claims mounted against the owner of the ship, Costa Cruises. They included lawsuits by the region of Tuscany and a €189m suit by the island of Giglio, which claimed that the accident and the presence of the downed vessel hurt tourism and the local economy. “From the happiness and wonder of being on a cruise, we passengers became panic stricken and fell over. Even as the crew began to frantically assess the damage and start the emergency diesel generator, Schettino ordered them to tell passengers that the ship had simply suffered an electrical outage and that everything was under control. The same erroneous information was given to the harbour master at Civitavecchia.

Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated. GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy (AFP) - Italy's Costa Concordia will set sail on its final voyage on Wednesday as survivors look on, two and a half years after the luxury cruise ship crashed and sank in a nighttime disaster that left 32 people dead. 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. Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship while passengers and crew were still aboard.