Video shot by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), roughly a month after the ship ran aground, shows that the Costa Concordia is not sitting evenly on the bottom.  Instead, the 950′ long ship is perched perilously on two rocky outcroppings at the bow and the stern. The rest of the ship’s hull is largely unsupported, except by its own buoyancy. This raises the possibility that the bending stresses on the hull may do serious structural damage and, in the worst case, break the ship in half.

CONCORDIA COULD COLLAPSE UNDER ITS OWN WEIGHT

The problems do not end there however. The rocks on which the bow and stern are suspended are crumbling. The sandy bottom around the rocks and under the ship slopes at an angle of 20 degrees toward deep water.  If the rocks that are now supporting the ship crumble further, it is possible that the ship might slip into deeper water.

ROV Video of Costa Concordia

Click here for the video with an English voiceover

[iframe: width=”560″ height=”410″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/0WTLuV4u2lE?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>]

The video does help explain why the ship rolled over on her side.  Once the bow and stern settled onto the rocks and the ship took on more water, the ship lost stability.  Instead of being supported by the buoyancy of the water distributed across the entire hull, the ship was figuratively balanced on two knife edges – the narrow bow and stern.  With a wind of over ten knots on the beam, the considerable windage of the 13 passenger decks, the free surface due the flooding and the narrow supports only at the bow and stern, the wind or current, if any could have rolled the ship over.

The 500 million Euro question is, can the ship remain intact and be prevented from sliding into deeper water in the ten months to a year that may be required to remove her from Giglio?

In related news, four more bodies were found on the wreck, raising the known dead to 21.  The total dead and missing still stands at 32.