Photo Gallery The 'Shocking Condition' of the Costa Concordia
Engineers successfully rotated the partially sunken Costa Concordia cruise ship into an upright condition in a complex operation on Tuesday morning.
The operation lasted a total of 19 hours to lift the 290-meter-long (951-foot-long), 35-meter-wide ship into an upright position. Here, it can be seen at daybreak in its watery grave off the island of Giglio.
The head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, Franco Gabrielli, said early Tuesday morning that the operation had been completed at 4 a.m. Italian time.
For the first time in 20 months, the wrecked ship's severely damaged starboard side is visible again.
The ship had been resting on its side since it rammed into a reef on Jan. 13, 2012, listing, sinking, killing 32 people. After viewing the starboard side, Admiral Stefano Tortora, who took part in the salvage operation, said, "The condition it's in is really shocking. It is disturbing because you are looking at a tragedy."
Before the Costa Concordia can finally be towed away and scrapped, it must first be stabilized.
Nick Sloane has been one of the leading figures in the salvage operation. The South African national is the project leader for the salvage firms Titan Salvage and Micoperi, which are leading the technical aspects of the operation.
After ending the 19-hour operation, officials said it had been "perfect". The operation involved massive physical forces, and officials had feared the massive ship, which is bigger than the Titanic, might break apart.
The side of the ship has brown mud and water stains after 20 months of being capsized.
As of Monday evening, large parts of the Costa Concordia still remained under water.
Here, a tourist can be seen following the spectacular salvation operation as it began on Monday.
