Crews attempting to right the Costa Concordia have successfully detached the wrecked cruise liner from the rocks on which it was impaled. The salvage operation got under way this morning, after a three-hour delay due to bad weather.
Engineer Sergio Girotto said the crippled vessel would not budge for some three hours after the operation began. After 6,000 tons of pressure was applied, the vessel was pulled free from the rocks.
Mr. Girotto said "We saw the detachment." The officials are following the operation thanks to undersea cameras.
The rescue effort will see the giant ship gradually rotated and hauled 65 degrees back to upright position for eventual towing. The operation just outside the small Italian island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast, is expected to last up to 12 hours, taking it into Monday evening.
Engineers say the lifting can continue after darkness falls. So far, the ship has been raised three degrees, said Mr. Girotto. As it rose, an ever wider strip of rusted hull has emerged from the sea.
The cruise liner capsized in shallow water 20 months ago after smashing into rock, prompting the chaotic evacuation of 4,200 passengers and crew, and causing the deaths of 32 people.
Two bodies are still missing, and officials said they saw no sign of them as the ship was detached from the rocks.
The first two hours were considered critical in the €600 million "parbuckling" operation. Parbuckling is a proven method to raise capsized vessels, notably used by the US military to right the USS Oklahoma in 1943 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
"Images show the lifting is happening as planned," said Italian Civil Protection Agency chief Franco Gabrielli, who added that no pollutants had been seen escaping from the vessel as it rose.
"There is significant deformation of the side of the vessel, showing the parbuckling operation needed to happen as soon as possible," he said.
The 114,000-ton Concordia has been described as the largest cruise ship ever to require the rotation, making this one most complex and costly maritime salvage operations ever attempted.
Engineers are using remote controls to guide a synchronised leverage system of pulleys, counterweights and huge chains looped under the Concordia's carcass to delicately lift the ship upright.
They started the operation by applying bursts of pressure on the pulleys, which are attached to the underwater platform and to towers on the landward side of the ship.
The ship will continue to be pulled upright by the pulleys, Mr. Girotto said, "but we will get to a point when we need less pressure". Soon, massive tanks attached to the exposed side of the ship will touch the water, providing buoyancy.
About 29,000 tons of water will pour out of the ship as it is pulled upright, and an even greater amount, 43,000 tons, will enter the ship.
What does come out will be polluted water that has swilled inside the ship for months in a mix of residual fuels, heavy metals and rotten food, including more than three tons of melon, 500 litres of olive oil, 14,000 packets of cigarettes, 18,000 bottles of wine, eight tons of beef and over 11 tons of fish.
But officials say the risk of an environmental damage is limited.
