Italy cruise ship salvage 'over by September'

The Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck will be removed from the island of Giglio by September at the latest, the head of Italy's civil protection agency said Saturday on the eve of the first anniversary of the disaster which claimed 32 lives. "The programme envisages the definitive removal by September," Franco Gabrielli told a press conference on the island, following a series of technical delays in the biggest salvage operation of a passenger ship ever attempted. "We are talking about a window for the removal between June and, if the weather conditions are adverse, September," he said. "This is a completely exceptional operation." Four hundred salvage workers have been employed in the removal by a partnership between US salvage giant Titan and Italian salvage company Micoperi. The operation is being financed by insurers for ship owner Costa Crociere, Europe's biggest cruise operator and a part of US-based Carnival Corp. The 290-metre (951-foot) long Costa Concordia -- with a gross tonnage of more than twice that of the Titanic -- crashed into Giglio and keeled over with 4,229 people from 70 countries on board on the night of January 13, 2012.