The last night, the Costa Cruises "Concordia" ship hit a rock a few meters from the island of Giglio. The hole of 70 meters along the hull made it to incline. Two of the three passengers confirmed dead are French, France 24 reported, while the third is a Peruvian person.
«Most people reached land by lifeboats but some swam to shore. At least 50 people have not yet been accounted for, Italian officials say, but they caution that the passenger list may not be fully up to date.» BBC reported.
«Passengers were initially told that the ship had shuddered to a halt for electrical reasons. (...) for 45 minutes they were told there was a simple "technical problem" before being advised to put on life jackets and head for lifeboats.» Deutsche Welle reported.
The ship sank had already had other accidents
The Costa Concordia before the tragedy on the Island of Giglio had a series of accidents. On May 4, 2010, a Russian tourist of 33 years falls into the sea from the deck of the ship, probably a suicide. Six months after a mobile crane at the port of Savona crashes on the ship. Luckily the crane caused neither damage or injuries.
In November 22, 2008 the ship had an incident at the port of Palermo; because of strong winds, the ship had a collision against the Sicilian port of the dock. The impact was tough, it created a massive rift between the forward and the right side of ship, and one of the bow doors were destroyed. Fortunately no injuries were recorded.
The ship was inaugurated September 2005, when it had an unfortunate baptism; the bottle of champagne, with which they christened the new boat, did not break the hull of the ship that will sail the sea. A bad presage, according to maritime tradition.
Acquired by Carnival Corporation, an American-British company, and the world's largest cruise ship operator, in 2000, Costa Cruises is now one of eleven brands operated by Carnival Corporation & PLC and accounts for approximately 16% of its revenue.
Sources: Il Fatto Quotidiano - photo - wikipedia
Having Sailed aboard the costa Concordia for our honeymoon in Dec 2008 during the early days of the ship the safety training given to the Staff always appeared satisfactory. In this age of Technology advacement in Navigation system such an event was never expected. Noticing the crew pattern on board of Many italian cruises my heart goes out to the crew which mainly consisted of Thai Nationals (40%) and Indian Nationals (25%) working on the house keeping staff and security. We as Indians Should try and find out if these crew members are safe and contact their families with any updated news. Having been on the ship and knowing their schedules followed on the cruise, since it leaves from Civitevechia for savona on its first night of each cruise Life saving trainings are given on the 3rd day morning when ship is generally at sea the whole day. so chaos was eminnent on the ship considering all passengers had just come aboard from civetevichia and barely settled in on board. they must thank their stars tht this did not happen in the middle of the mediterenian sea
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