What is happening on the Costa Concordia now?

As I have written quite a lot about the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia a few weeks ago, I was surprised when I came across strange news related to the Concordia again today which have nothing to do with the actual event of the sinking. Apparently, the ship bell, which became a symbol for the sunken cruise ship, has gone missing. Until a few days ago the bell with the engraved name "Costa Concordia", which weights around 30 kg, was still in the sunken vessel, around 8m deep in the water, has gone missing. 

It is likely that the bell of the Costa Concordia has been stolen

The Italian police has opened a case concerning the stolen or missing bell, and for now they announced that they see the possibility that one of the divers or a member of the technical staff working on the vessel has stolen the bell. 

The salvage of the cruise ship is still going on

 

If we don't take the mysterious disappearance of the ship bell into account, the salvage of the cruise ship has gone well so far. Specialist are still pumping out the fuel which the ship had on board and due to the good weather conditions there haven't been any major problems. 


More important than the missing of the ship bell is without doubt to find out what exactly led to the crash of the ship and who is responsible for it. The Italian police is still investigating and questioning the witnesses and consulting with experts. Apart from Captain Schettino, eight other ship's officers and Costa executives are currently officially under investigation.  



According to the latest information, there have been 4.229 people on the Costa Concordia at the night of the incident and 25 of them have lost their lifes. Sadly enough 7 of the passengers still could not be found and brought back to their families, which brings the total amount of victims to 32.




r.s.




picture source: 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089052/Domnica-Cemortan-Was-Costa-Concordia-captain-Francesco-Schettino-trying-impress-ballerina.html 
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16155170 



more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/03/costa-concordia-captain-coastguards 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17317279