It won’t rank up there with the Pantheon or Colosseum in Rome but the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia is drawing tourists. The mayor of the island of Giglio where salvage efforts continue on the half-sunk cruise ship calls them “hit and run” tourists, stopping for the day, taking photos then moving on by night. Here is the complete story in this short video from the Wall Street Journal:
“The cruise liner Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the coast of Italy in January, has become an unlikely tourist attraction as salvage crews work to dismantle it just meters from a popular beach,” WSJ’s Gilles Castonguay reports.
After the grounding of Costa Concordia, the cruise ship industry took a good hard look at safety. Bringing together the best minds in the business, an all-star panel of experts reviewed standard procedures in place on cruise ships. What they found was no surprise; a system that exceeded the legal requirements for operation of a cruise ship, with flaws.
Now, in addition to the legal requirements, Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) members have adopted a policy that musters and emergency instructions are to include the following common elements:
- When and how to don a lifejacket
- Description of emergency signals and appropriate responses in the event of an emergency
- Location of lifejackets
- Where to muster when the emergency signal is sounded
- Method of accounting for passenger attendance at musters both for training and in the event of an actual emergency
- How information will be provided in an emergency
- What to expect if the Master orders an evacuation of the ship
- What additional safety information is available
- Instructions on whether passengers should return to cabins prior to mustering, including specifics regarding medications, clothing, and lifejackets
- Description of key safety systems and features
- Emergency routing systems and recognizing emergency exits
- Who to seek out for additional information
[Flickr photo by AN HONORABLE GERMAN]