The enormous cruise ship, The Costa Concordia, no longer lies on its side, rusting in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tuscany, Italy.
Salvagers spent 19 hours—and more than $824-million—setting it upright.
It was the largest salvage operation of its kind.
The 13-deck Costa Concordia was carrying 4,200 people on Jan. 13, 2012 when its captain steered it too close to the shore.
The ship ran aground a few hundred metres off the tiny island of Giglio near Tuscany.
Rocks tore a 50-metre gash down one side of the hull and the ship took on water. The crash killed 32 people; two people were reported missing.
The ship has been there, on its side, ever since—until Tuesday, when it was “parbuckled,” or set upright.
Now that the ship is vertical, officials will enter it to find, and return, the belongings of the people who had been on the cruise.
They will also be able to search for the bodies of the two missing passengers.
The side of the ship that was in the water is covered in brown slime and is badly damaged from the weight of the capsized ship. It will have to be repaired before the ship can be towed away and sold for scrap, sometime next year.
When the ship was finally put vertical in the early morning on Tuesday, a huge cheer went up from the crowd on shore, according to BBC News. They said rescue workers “have been out celebrating with coffees.”
Related links
Watch a one-minute, time-lapsed video of the salvage of the Costa Concordia on the BBC News Europe website (following a 30-second advertisement).
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
After reading the article, what do you know about the salvage of the Costa Concordia? List all of the facts that you learned.
Then watch the video using the related link above. On your list, use a different colour to add what you learned about the salvage operation from the video.
How was your learning different? Did you learn different pieces of information in the article and the video? Which was easier to understand and why?
Reading Prompt: Analysing Texts
Journalists often mirror the introductory sentence and the concluding sentence in an article. They do this to connect the beginning and end of the article and bring it together as a whole.
How did the author tie the opening sentence to the concluding sentence in this article? How did it help you to understand the content?
Junior
Analyse texts and explain how various elements in them contribute to meaning (OME, Reading: 1.7).
Intermediate
Analyse a variety of texts, both simple and complex, and explain how the different elements in them contribute to meaning and influence the reader’s reaction (OME, Reading: 1.7).
Grammar Feature: Alliteration
An alliteration is when words next to each other have the same beginning sound. For example, “Costa Concordia” is an alliteration because both words start with the ‘c’ sound.
Create at least 5 alliterations using at least 3 words that start with the same sound. For example: The slimy, sinking ship was slippery.
