Snapshot: Looking on the Costa Concordia

Of all the photos to have come out of the recent disaster, this one strikes me as being the most poignant. There is a sort of awful beauty in it all - ship of that size sinking so close to land. This picture sums it up for me.

The Sad State of the Costa Concordia

Daylight shows the Costa Concordia in a truly spectacular - yet terribly sad - state. The Italian ship has a 160 foot gash in her side; a giant piece of rock is still clearly embedded in her hull.

At least forty people are still missing, and three are confirmed dead. Divers are continually searching the wreck for more survivors - a South Korean couple was found alive earlier today.

Many of the over 4,000 survivors have been telling their stories, and many of them seem to focus on the chaotic nature of the shipboard evacuation. They say the crew didn't seem to know what was going on, and now the Costa Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, has been detained by police. He may face criminal charges as a result of the disaster.

For those who were aboard the Costa Concordia...

Our thoughts are with all those who were aboard the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off Italy on the evening of January 13. The damage was substantial and she ultimately capsized. An investigation is currently underway.

While most of the people aboard were saved, at least three are dead. Rumor has it that many more may be trapped inside the stricken ship, but I hope that this is indeed just a rumor.

The Death of the Normandie

It was 69 years ago today that the French liner Normandie caught fire and capsized at her berth in New York. The grand ship was laid up in New York following the outbreak of World War II, and after France fell in 1940 was seized by the US government for use as a troop transport. She was renamed the USS Lafayette, after the Marquis de Lafayette (who had helped the Americans in the Revolutionary War) and nearly ready for her debut in this wartime role when disaster struck on February 9, 1942.

This period newsreel does a rather good job of describing what exactly happened to this grand ship 69 years ago. Notice, too, how in the later part of the clip the announcer described her as once being "the second finest ship afloat."