Engineers succeeded Tuesday in righting the Costa Concordia cruise liner off the Italian island of Giglio, where it had capsized when it ran aground in January 2012, killing dozens of people. The effort began at 9 a.m. Monday. By midnight, despite delays caused by thunderstorms and the need to tighten a slack cable, the ship had been hauled off the rocks and upward about 25 degrees. That was far enough for the salvage crew to start drawing water into massive steel boxes attached to the exposed side of the hull and then use the weight of that water to finish rolling the hulk onto a steel platform built off the sea floor.There appeared to be no sign of leaks, a front man told reporters - a promising sign, as the wrecked liner is full of spoiled food and chemicals in material such as paint and lubricants. They include thousands of liters of lubricants, paints, insecticides, glue and paint thinners as well as 10 tanks of oxygen and 3,929 liters of carbon dioxide.
Not only that, but also -
Refrigerators filled with milk, cheese, eggs and vegetables have been closed tight since the disaster.
Not to mention -
Freezers that remain intact contain the rotting remnants of what were once 1,268 kilograms of chicken breasts, 8,200 kilograms of beef, 2,460 kilograms of cheese and 6,850 liters of ice cream.
Next up -
A robotic submarine equipped with surveillance cameras will survey the damaged side of the ship and create models needed in planning for the next phase of operations - the attachment of more buoyancy chambers called sponsons to the starboard side.
Once those are installed, water will be pumped out of the sponsons to refloat the vessel. Organizers expect the ship won't be towed away for dismantling until the summer of 2014.
Meanwhile -
Francesco Schettino, the captain who guided the ship off course, faces charges of manslaughter, causing a maritime disaster and abandoning ship with passengers still on board. His trial resumes September 23.