GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy
A complex system of pulleys (click here) and counterweights on Monday began pulling the Costa Concordia cruise ship upright from its side on a Tuscan reef at Giglio Island, where it capsized 20 months ago -- an anxiously awaited operation of a kind that has never been attempted on such a huge liner.
Engineers told reporters they'd succeeded in detaching the 952-foot-long vessel from the reef on which it was resting, and the operation was continuing. No bodies had been spotted, they said.
Engineer Sergio Girotto said it began at about 9 a.m., three hours late.
The delay was due to an early morning storm that pushed back a floating command room center from its position close to the wreckage.
The goal is to raise it from its side by 65 degrees to vertical, as a ship would normally be, for eventual towing....
