Updated at 9:45 a.m. ET
GIGLIO, Italy - Italian emergency officials say they are calling off a search for missing people in the submerged part of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, due to the danger to rescue workers.
Italy's Civil Protection agency said Tuesday that technical studies indicated that the deformed hull of the ship created too many safety concerns to continue the search. It said in a statement that relatives and diplomatic officials representing the countries of the missing have been informed of the decision.
The Concordia ran aground off the island of Giglio on Jan. 13 when the captain deviated from his planned route and struck a reef, creating a huge gash that capsized the ship.
Seventeen bodies have been recovered, of which one has not yet been identified. Sixteen people are listed as missing.
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On Sunday, officials said the ship will take up to 10 months to remove.
Only once the 500,000 gallons of fuel is removed can work begin on removing the ship, either floating it in one piece or cutting it up and towing it away as a wreck. Costa has begun the process for taking bids for the recovery operation, a process that will take two months.
Experts have said it would take 28 days to remove fuel from 15 tanks accounting for more than 80 percent of all fuel on board the ship. The next job would be to target the engine room, which contains nearly 350 cubic meters of diesel, fuel and other lubricants, Gabrielli said.
Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the operation, has said the actual removal will take from seven to 10 months ? meaning that the wreck will be visible from the coast of the island of Giglio for the entire summer tourism season.
Residents of Giglio have been circulating a petition to demand that officials provide more information on how the full-scale operations can coexist with the important tourism season. At the moment, access to the port for private boats has been banned and all boats must stay at least one mile from the wrecked ship, affecting access to Giglio's only harbor for fishermen, scuba divers and private boat owners.
"We are really sorry, we would have preferred to save them all. But now other needs and other problems arise," said Franca Melils, a local business owner who is promoting a petition for the tourist season. "It's about us, who work and make a living exclusively from tourism. We don't have factories, we don't have anything else."
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~3/5x-EYe9Sv_s/
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