Costa Concordia floats again after over 2 years

Over two and a half years since it capsized off the coast of an Italian island, the Costa Concordia cruiser is afloat again, as of Monday midday.

The biggest salvage operation of a passenger ship in history began 10 months ago, when workers dragged the 114,000-ton ship off the rocks.

The next phase of the process consisted in engineers attaching metal boxes to both sides of the ship. As the boxes were filled with air, they forced the ship into a floating position.

The operation was not without risks as the bottom of the ship and the side which stood underwater have rotted away and could have given in at any moment.

Next phases of the salvation operation are critical as rescuers will try to move the ship 30 meters to the east. If everything will go as planned, they will then reinforce the bottom of the cruiser with cables and chains and start a long journey of 240 kilometers to the port of Genoa.

The entire process is expected to last for another several months because,besides technical issues related to the ship’s degraded state, there are also bureaucratic issues that need to be tended to, such as the port where the ship will be dismantled.

At the moment of the accident in 2011, the Costa Concordia was carrying 4,200 passengers aboard. 32 of those lost their lives.