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Isola del Giglio
Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck will be removed from the coast of north-west Italy in June, officials say.
The stricken liner will then be taken away to be scrapped.
Ports in Italy, Britain, France, Turkey and China are bidding for the lucrative contract to dismantle the ship, Italian officials said.
The Costa Concordia hit a reef near the island of Giglio in January 2012 and capsized, killing 32 people.
Captain Francesco Schettino is currently on trial for multiple charges of manslaughter and for abandoning ship.
Officials overseeing the Costa Concordia salvage operation set out their timetable at a news conference on Friday.
Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck will be removed from the coast of north-west Italy in June
Project manager Franco Porcellacchia said that, from April, the team would start to fix at least 15 large tanks to the side of the ship. They will be filled with water, and then gradually emptied to give the ship enough buoyancy to float off the seabed.
Once afloat, the ship can then be towed away.
Franco Porcellacchia said if that does not work then the world’s largest semi-submergible ship, the Dockwise Vanguard, will be on standby and can literally carry the ship into port.
The winning contract for dismantling the Costa Concordia is due to be announced in March.
Italy’s environment minister Andrea Orlando said the preference was to keep the project in Italy, both to limit the environmental impact and to keep any economic benefits.
The 290m-long vessel was righted last September in one of the largest, most complex salvage operations ever that took 18 hours and followed months of stabilisation and preparation work by a team of 500 engineers and divers.
That operation allowed divers to retrieve the remains of one of the two people still missing in the disaster, believed to be an Italian passenger, Maria Grazia Trecarichi. An Indian waiter, Russel Rebello, is still unaccounted for.
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The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship could be loaded aboard Dockwise Vanguard – a colossal salvage vessel – after a deal was struck with a Dutch company.
The Dockwise Vanguard, capable of picking up oil rigs, has been recruited as an option to move the ship.
The vessel can sink under the Costa Concordia then rise up to lift it clear of the water before sailing it to be scrapped.
Some 32 people died after the Concordia ran aground with more than 4,000 passengers and crew in January 2012.
The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship could be loaded aboard Dockwise Vanguard
Salvage teams moved the ship to an upright position last month, enabling divers to find the remains of one of two people who were still unaccounted for.
Costa Crociere, Concordia’s owner, said the Vanguard had been retained as one possible option for removing the wreck from its current location off Giglio island in 2014.
It said the $30 million contract to use the salvage vessel would offer a “safe and swift” method to transport the cruise ship to its as yet undetermined final destination.
The company said the operation is the biggest salvage ever attempted on a ship of the Costa Concordia’s size.
The 902ft-long Vanguard has no bow and a flat stern, allowing it contain the longer cruise ship.
The Vanguard, described by its Dutch owner Royal Boskalis as the world’s largest semi-submersible ship, uses vast ballast tanks to lower and raise itself around its cargo.
The company said modifications would need to be made before it is capable of carrying Costa Concordia.
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The remains of Indian waiter Russel Rebello – one of two people still missing from the Costa Concordia – have been found by Italian divers searching the wreck of the cruise ship, officials say.
An Italian passenger, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, is still unaccounted for.
Thirty people had already been confirmed dead after the Costa Concordia partially sank off the island of Giglio last year.
Salvage teams moved it to an upright position last month.
The remains of Indian waiter Russel Rebello have been found on the third deck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship
“The remains have been found by rescuers on the third deck” of the cruise ship, said a civil protection agency spokeswoman, Francesca Maffini.
“Several elements make us say that they could relate to the body of the young waiter of Indian nationality, Russel Rebello,” she said.
The agency the results would not be confirmed for several days, but said Russel Rebello’s family had been informed about the development.
An earlier announcement by the authorities that they had found the remains of two human bodies was subsequently played down.
The search for the two people who remained unaccounted for resumed on September 24, a week after the wreck of the cruise ship had been moved to an upright position and stabilized.
Officials have made the recovery of the remaining bodies a priority.
Divers had previously focused their search for the two missing people on the fourth deck of the Costa Concordia, where they had reportedly been seen for the last time on the evening of the accident.
The captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, is on trial over the disaster.
Francesco Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship, but says he is being made a scapegoat for the errors of others.
Italian officials have revealed that divers scouring the site of the Costa Concordia wreck off the coast of Italy have recovered what could be more human remains.
It comes days after Italy’s civil protection agency said it had found remains that could belong to the last two missing victims of the disaster.
All the remains have been sent for DNA testing.
The cruise ship ran aground and partially sank off Giglio island last year with the loss of 32 lives.
Divers scouring the site of the Costa Concordia wreck off the coast of Italy have recovered what could be more human remains
It was raised upright last month in a major salvage operation.
“Other remains have also been found and are currently undergoing DNA tests,” the agency’s chief Franco Gabrielli told reporters on Wednesday.
“We are waiting for the results of the analysis,” he added.
Costa Concordia’s captain, Francesco Schettino, is on trial over the disaster.
Francesco Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship, but says he is being made a scapegoat for the errors of others.
Two people were reported missing, presumed dead, after the disaster – Indian waiter Russel Rebello and Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi.
It was thought they had been trapped beneath the ship and the rocks, correspondents say.
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