Hard part now over for the £400m year-long mission to salvage Costa Concordia
The mission to right the sunken Costa Concordia has been a success. At 4am this morning, the ship was in place.
It was expected to take just 12 hours, but took nearer 24 to complete. Watch the time lapse video below. It will now take several weeks to fit floating tanks to the starboard side of the ship, with it expected to be ready to move in the spring.
As previously reported…
In a never before attempted mission, the sunken cruiseliner Costa Concordia will today be raised in the hope that she will once again sit upright. A platform has been built underneath the 290m (952ft) ship so that she can be rolled upright before being floated, using air-filled tanks attached to its hull.
The mission is estimated to cost in the region of £400m – £30m more than the original cost of building the ship. More than 18,000 tonnes of concrete have been used to build the platform, which the ship will hopefully be sitting on later today.
If everything goes as planned, it will take 12 hours to right the ship.
Gallery of the Costa Concordia
Read our story timeline of the Costa Concordia
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