Death toll at 16 from Costa Concordia accident

ROME – A barge carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signalling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea.

Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but teams from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were working on the bow of the Concordia on Tuesday and divers were to make underwater inspections to identify the precise locations of the fuel tanks.

They were at work on the now-hitched Meloria barge as divers who blasted through a submerged section of the third-floor deck located another body from the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 16.

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The Concordia ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan. 13 after the captain veered from his approved course and gashed the ship’s hull on a reef, forcing the panicked evacuation of 4,200 passengers and crew.

The 16 bodies found so far include the one located on the third-floor deck Tuesday. Seven of the badly decomposed bodies remain unidentified and are presumed to be among some of the 17 passengers and crew still unaccounted for. On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to Italy David Thorne was at Giglio’s port with relatives of two missing Americans, Gerald and Barbara Heil of Minnesota.

Giglio and its waters are part of a protected seven-island marine park, favoured by VIPs and known for its clear waters and porpoises, dolphins and whales.

Officials have identified an initial six fuel tanks that will be drilled into, tapped and outfitted with hoses to vacuum out the oil from the Costa Concordia. Franco Gabrielli, head of the national civil protection agency, told reporters Tuesday that once those initial six tanks are emptied, 50 per cent of the fuel aboard the ship will have been extracted.

The pumping will continue 24 hours a day barring rough seas or technical glitches, he said, noting that these six tanks are relatively easy to access.

“At this stage we don’t see a big risk in an oil spill, but if weather deteriorates nobody can tell what the vessel will do,” Bart Huizing, head of operations at Smit, told The Associated Press.