Concordia floats again

Tuscan Governor warns operation still threatens environment

(ANSA) - Rome, July 14 - The Costa Concordia cruise liner was re-floated Monday in the first phase of an unprecedented salvage operation. "Ladies and gentlemen, she's refloating," announced a beaming Nick Sloane, the senior salvage master who oversaw the successful parbuckling operation to upright the partially sunken vessel last autumn. Operations began early Monday to refloat the wreckage of the vessel that careened into rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio in January 2012, killing 32 people.

The first phase entailed lifting the wreck by 2 metres and moving it 30 metres to the east. The Costa wreck is expected to be towed to Genoa port Monday July 22, Civil Protection head Franco Gabrielli said. Once the wreck is towed away, the priority will be to clean up the site where it has lain for the past two and a half years, environmental officials said.

Despite the razzmatazz surrounding the re-float Tuscany Governor Enrico Rossi cautioned that the region still is seeking damages against Costa "which is not at all the heroic company it is made out to be because it caused a disaster in which 32 persons lost their lives. Rossi underlined that the decision to take the wreck as far as Genoa rather than break it up on the nearby island of Elba at the port of Piombino is fraught with risk to the environment. "Let's wish them 'good sailing' seeing how they made a choice that presents much higher environmental risks than the Piombino option," said the Tuscan Governor.