Rescue efforts suspended as Costa Concordia moves in choppy seas

The search for survivors and bodies on the luxury liner the Costa Concordia was halted early on Friday morning after the ship moved.

Reuters/Paul Hanna

Officials are afraid the giant 17-deck ship could slip off a rocky ledge on which it is resting on its side and sink entirely.

Coastguard spokesperson Filippi Marini told reporters, “Rescue workers were on the ship during the night. When it moved, the search was immediately suspended.”

Choppy seas have made conditions more dangerous and and emergency services are considering the possibility of attaching the ship to the mainland using cables to prevent it from moving again.

Access to the boat by dinghy is difficult, with waves of up to 1.5 metres are forecast today.

Environmentalists and local residents of the island of Giglio area, which is a nature reserve and marine sanctuary, are afraid that there could be a spill from the ship’s tanks which contain 2,380 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of diesel.

Dutch company Smit Salvage is ready to pump out the fuel in a process which is known as a “hot-tapping” operation, but this could affect the vessel’s stability, so the rescue search would first have to be suspended.

Eleven people have been confirmed dead in the tragedy including four French nationals, one Italian and one Spaniard among the passengers and 2 crew members: a Peruvian waiter and a Hungarian violinist.

Three of the bodies recovered have not yet been identified.

The Italian cabinet is to meet today to adopt measures to regulate shipping routes more tightly, after reports that the Costa Concordia veered off route for the enjoyment of passengers and islanders.

Meanwhile the head of the company which owned the vessel, Costa Cruises, told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the captain had waited almost half an hour after the ship hit the rocks, before warning the company of the scale of the disaster.

“Personally, I think (Schettino) wasn’t honest with us”, said Pier Luigi Foschi.“I think he was in an emotionally altered state. He was watching his creature, his ship, sinking in front of him.”