Costa Concordia salvage operation: live 18.50 As we have reported here before, the shipwreck has attracted a fair few tourists, as well as a number of voyeurs... Artist Nino Taravella works at a painting of the Costa Concordia 18.40 An emotional Nick Sloane, the South African salvage master in charge of the operation, admitted that it had been "a roller coaster ride" with some "very tense" moments. His eyes welled up with tears as he described the moment that he radioed all the vessels involved in the project to tell them that the Concordia had been successfully hauled upright. The boats' horns went off and you could hear that the guys were really chuffed. A bit of emotion is alright. 18.14 The Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has said that the success of the salvage has given national pride a boost. Earlier he commented that it's "helped our country turn the corner and renew its public image, which in the case of the shipwreck was one of a country that dodged its responsibilities." 55 The Italian press is finding national solace in the operation to salvage the passenger ship, says Nick Squires. There's an interesting cultural aspect to the whole saga. The recovery of the Concordia is being hailed as redemption for Italy after it became an international laughing stock for the alleged cowardice of Capt Schettino and the bunga bunga shenanigans of Silvio Berlusconi. The two men were regarded as embodying the worst of Italian manhood but the Concordia success has gone some way to repair Italy's image - at least according to the Italian press. "After the days of shame on international TV networks, Italy has raised its head again," said an editorial in La Nazione newspaper. "It was an international operation, sure, but the brains behind it were Italian." (that is a dubious assertion given that the salvage master is South African and his crews from 26 countries, including the UK). "The redemption of a nation bowed," was the front page headline in Il Tirreno, another newspaper. 17.16 Amidst the success of the operation, Matthew Price of the BBC says it should not be forgotten that this story is a story about death and human incompetence. Now the full horror of what happened was exposed. There were the concertinaed floors of luxury cabins. There were the ripped and soaked curtains, hanging limply from the compressed window frames. A bright red suitcase appeared to float in the waters. There were doors on the starboard walkway that slowly opened and closed as the water flowed through them. Somewhere on those buckled decks, in the dark of night, on 13 January 2012, stood Dayana Arlotti. She was a five-year-old girl on the cruise ship with her father, and his partner. He had just put a lifejacket on his daughter, when she slipped. She fell down the side of the ship, into the water. He jumped in after her. Both of them died. 16.53 Astrium GEO, a satellite company, has released this photo of the Concordia, viewed from space, taken just after being uprighted and released it on their Twitter feed. Copyright: Astrium GEO 16.50 Sloane was asked what he thought about Captain Calamity, Schettino himself. I must admit I wouldn't like to be in his shoes. It has to be the worst nightmare of a captain. It's something he has to deal with and I feel sorry for everyone involved in the accident. 16.28 One notable absence from the last couple of days" proceedings is the captain of the now righted ship, Francesco Schettino, who it seems has been doing his best to keep out of the limelight, writes Tom Witherow. While the world watches the salvage of his shipwrecked cruiser, he's holed up in his Naples home with lawyers in preparation for his return to trial on Monday. Reporters knocking on his door in the sleepy town of Meta Sorrento have been met with silence. Former mayor of the town Carlo Sassi, who had once been a staunch supporter of the captain, today thought that his silence might be his last line of legal defence. 16.02 Sloane has said that the raising of the ship "took a bit longer but the results were better than we had hoped." The start of the operation had been delayed on Monday by a thunderstorm that swept over Giglio. The weather is your worst enemy and we had a delay because of the storm and the rain. We had to be patient. The bad weather delayed the positioning of a command and control barge that was key to the operation. Mr Sloane said that 6,800 tons of pressure had to be applied to the capsized ship in order to pull it from the rocky shallows where it has rested since Jan 2012. "Due to the very heavy weight it took longer to get her up," he told a press conference on Giglio. 15.55 The latest video from Telegraph TV displays the full extent of the damage suffered by the Concordia. 15.38 Nick Squires has a bit more on the man of the moment, Nick Sloane. The salvage master in charge of the operation, Nick Sloane, welled up with emotion when he talked of his relief that the project had succeeded. The South African was describing the moment that he radioed all the vessels involved in the effort to tell them, at 4am this morning, that the Concordia had been successfully hauled upright. "The boats' horns went off and you could hear that the guys were really chuffed," he told a packed press conference on Giglio, struggling to contain tears. There was a lot of relief...all the tension, the bad weather of last winter - it was like a roller coaster ride. We've had 500 people working on this around the clock for 15 months. 15.04 Channel 4 News has also had a look at what happens next regarding the Concordia. They have spoken to Mark Hoddinott, general manager of the International Salvage Union, who used to work for the company undertaking the operation. He said it was "incredible" how smoothly it all went. They will check for obvious signs of crushing damage - not just above but below the water, with lots of diving. They will also record it all. The next stage is to attach caissons - the boxes already attached to the port side - which will help her float. There is no flat area, so there will be some fabrication to be done before this can happen - some building, welding, steelwork... Then when the time comes to refloat her, they will pump out the caissons providing buoyancy to lift the ship, and then she will be towed away.. 14.42 I don't always agree with what Donald Trump has to say, but this Tweet from the mogul seems to sum it up quite nicely: 14.12 Nick Sloane is back up talking. He does seem to be the master of the understatement, but he says there were some "tense moments" in the raising of the ship. He adds that there is still a lot to be done. 13.51 Mayor Sergio Ortelli has said that the island felt a wave of relief as soon as the Concordia was freed from the reef in the initial hours of the operation. But he said there was also the realisation that two bodies still have yet to be found. "While there is happiness today, there is no triumphalism," he told The Associated Press. 13.30 Meanwhile in Italian politics, Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, has postponed an announcement until Wednesday in which he was likely to steer away from moves to bring down the government following his tax fraud conviction. Sources gave no reason for the postponement although there is speculation that he did not want to fight with the Concordia for precious air time. This picture from this morning clearly shows the "half and half" effect of the ship lying in the sea for 20 months. 12.34 So a bit more on our man Nick Sloane, courtesy of Tom Witherow who has been researching the man in charge of the "Magnificent 11." It was over 30 years ago in 1980 that Sloane started his career at sea with South African company Safmarine, where his first assignment was the rescue of Castillo de Bellver, a burning tanker filled with over 250,000 tonnes of crude oil stranded off the South African coast. He's gone on to repair oil and gas lines in the Middle East and salvage a tanker hit by pirates off the Yemeni coast. The Brilliante Virtuoso was 20 miles from the port of Aden when it was set ablaze, but it was saved with no environmental damage. His globetrotter lifestyle has had to be borne by his long-suffering wife, responsible for bringing up their 17-year-old twins and 10-year-old daughter. Previously described as a cross between cross between Prince Harry and Russell Crowe, Sloane was hired by the American-Italian team of Titan Salvage and Micoperi to take charge of the Magnificent Eleven who rescued the Costa Concordia from the reef of idyllic Tuscan island, Giglio. 11.59 The search for the two remaining bodies will begin in the next few days. Maria Grazia Trecarichi, an Italian, is one of them. Her husband, Elio Vincenzi, was expected on Giglio later today. He said: "I am still hoping to find my wife. This is a tense wait for me and for my daughter. 11.20 For the country of Italy itself, the successful operation is a moment of pride after the horror and embarrassment of the initial disaster. Prime Minister Enrico Letta phoned to congratulate the Italian official in charge of the operation. "I told him that all those who are working there are a great pride," Mr Letta tweeted. 11.03 Nick Squires has come out of the briefing and has more on what happens next for the Concordia. Salvage crews are to start work on reinforcing and stabilising the badly-mangled hull of the Costa Concordia after the huge cruise liner was hauled upright in a dramatic 19-hour operation. They hope to complete the work in the next few days to allow Italian police investigators to enter the ship, which as well as being the probable grave of two missing victims of the tragedy is also a crime scene containing evidence that could be used in the trial of Capt Francesco Schettino, who was in command when it capsized off the island of Giglio in January last year. Italian authorities need to search the ship for the remains of the two victims - an Italian passenger who had been celebrating her 50th birthday and an Indian waiter. Once the ship is made safe, rescue experts will recover 1,500 safes from the ship's cabins so that they can return the valuables and other personal possessions of passengers. After being raised in the unprecedented salvage operation, the ship is resting on six underwater platforms . It is sitting deep in the sea, with two-thirds of the vessel underwater. The plan is to refloat it in the spring or early summer and tow it to an Italian port to be broken up for scrap. Costa Cruises, the Italian company that operated the ship, pledged to do whatever it takes to restore the seabed to its former, pristine state. 10.30 Telegraph TV has video of Nick Sloane, the South African, leading the celebrations after the Concordia was successfully raised. 10.23 Italian police are keen to get on to the Concordia to recover evidence but it is not yet safe according to chief engineer Franco Procellacchia. 09.55 For those fearing a toxic stench emitting from the ship once upright, Italian officials have said not such thing has yet presented itself. 09.45 Michael Thamm, the head of Costa Cruises, has pledged to return the Giglio seabed to its original pristine state, no matter the cost. 09.40 A cruise company executive has said that the Concordia salvage operation cost 600 million euros (£503 million), but the figure will rise significantly. 09.33 Nick Squires is tweeting furiously from the press conference. If you aren't following him but are interested in the Costa Concordia story, as well as all things Italy, you should follow him @nicksquires1 He says the search for the two bodies still missing will not be able to start until the ship is stabilised and made safe, which could take days. Engineers say that the Concordia needs to be stabilised so it can survive remaining in the water off Giglio all winter. 09.21 Officials in charge of the Costa Concordia salvage operation have been holding a press briefing. Franco Gabrielli, the Italian official in charge, appears to be the master of the understatement: 09.08 Luciano Castro, one of the survivors who travelled to the island to witness the salvage, told AFP earlier that seeing the vessel re-emerge was "emotional." I could not miss it. That ship could have been my end and instead I am here to tell the story. 08.32 So now the ship is upright, what happens next? Although the ship has been raised, Nick Squires writes, there is still a lot of work ahead and it will remain off Giglio for months. Italian police are keen to get aboard the vessel as it remains a crime scene and could provide evidence relevant to the trial of Capt Francesco Schettino. The next hearing in the trial, in Grosseto in Tuscany, takes place on Monday. And there is pressure to look for the remains of two victims whose bodies were never recovered - an Italian woman and a waiter from India. But for now the ship is far too dangerous to be explored by divers or investigators, officials say. It will have to be stabilised and made safe. Engineers also face the mammoth task of fitting 11 "sponsons" - giant steel boxes - to the badly mangled starboard side of the ship. Along with sponsons already fitted to the port side, they will act as huge "armbands," enabling the Concordia to float off its underwater platform and be towed away. 07.55 Tony Livingstone, a British diver who has been working on the salvage operation for months, tells The Telegraph that when the ship keeled over on the night of Jan 13, 2012, it became wedged on two underwater outcrops of granite - had they not been there it could have sunk completely. Without those two bits of rock it would have gone down and there could have been 4,200 people dead. A former specialist diver with the Royal Engineers, Mr Livingstone, from Aberdeenshire, said: "This phase is over but there's still a lot of hard work ahead." Having just finished a grueling 12 hour night shift, during which the ship was raised, he was hoping to get some sleep before clocking on for another shift tonight. 07.46 Telegraph TV has timelapse footage of the raising of the ship. It is really quite amazing - and a lot quicker to watch than the 19-hour live feed! Only 51 seconds of your time in fact. 07.40 South Africa's City Press has a fun piece on Nick Sloane, the South African behind the salvage of the Concordia who has been quoted at various points throughout our live blog. Sloane is no stranger to spectacular accidents at sea. He began his career in 1980 working on the tugs of Safmarine, a South African salvage company. His first major job was the salvage of the Castillo de Bellver, a burning Spanish tanker filled with 252 000 tonnes of crude stranded off the coast of South Africa. He worked his way up the ranks in the industry and was promoted to the position of salvage master in 1991. He was part of a team that went in with the US Navy's salvage division to repair damaged pipelines and oil infrastructure in Afghanistan and Iraq immediately after the US-led invasions and has worked in Russia to build a giant oil pipeline for Kazakh crude. He has dealt with accidents that caused some of the worst oil spills in the world in recent years. In 2011, he was involved in a risky operation when he helped secure the Brillante Virtuoso tanker, which was attacked by pirates off Yemen and set on fire. 07.16 The starboard side of the Concordia, which lay under the sea for 20 months, is a truly extraordinary sight now that it is out of the water, writes Nick Squires. It sustained massive damage when the ship keeled over, hitting two granite outcrops beneath the sea. The impact smashed two huge indentations in the side of the ship - it looks as if a giant has delivered two punches to the hull. Decks are stoved in and bent almost out of recognition, girders twisted and cabins exposed - you can see bits of sodden curtain hanging from windows where once there was glass. 07.15 Ever since the Costa Concordia struck its craggy coastline, the backwater island of Giglio has been overrun by an army of Budweiser-swigging, English breakfast-eating workers. It was once one of the best kept secrets of the Mediterranean, a craggy island surrounded by crystal-clear waters that was known to Italians but precious few foreigners. But Giglio has been invaded by an army of foreign salvage workers, mariners and engineers from more than 25 countries. The invasion, although friendly, has profoundly altered the social and economic dynamic of the island, part of an idyllic archipelago off the coast of Tuscany. "It's changed everything," said Samantha Brizzi, 37, a local estate agent. 07.10 Nick Sloane, the South African salvage master who led the operation, was applauded by salvage crews and mobbed by TV crews in Giglio's port after coming ashore. "It was a good challenge," he told The Daily Telegraph with characteristic understatement. Everyone is very pleased with how it went. The next step is to inspect all the damage on the starboard side. 06.15 Nick Squires, our Rome correspondent, writes about the celebrations taking place on Giglio as the Costa Concordia is finally righted after a painstaking 19-hour operation. 06.00 This composite picture underlines the scale of the job done overnight by engineers and salvage crews. 05.43 More from Nick Squires, on the scene in Giglio, who tells us that salvage workers are planning to celebrate the completion of the project with a big party. Swigging from a bottle of beer outside Bar Fausto, a tiny cafe on the harbour-front, Steve, 34, a Belgian survey technician, said: "It feels really good. We always felt it would work, but it's still a big relief. Nieko, 24, a diver from Belgium, said: "It's a weird feeling because for so long we saw the ship lying on its side and now it is upright. It's a beautiful thing. Denny Hoffschlag, 34, a diver from the Netherlands, said: "This is a once in a lifetime job. There's a lot of joy, seeing the ship finally upright. It gives me goose bumps. It's an experience I'll never forget. When we work in Holland the water is so murky you can barely see beyond your mask but here we had 30 metres visibility. 05.30 Nick Squires, our Rome correspondent, is on the scene in Giglio and has sent this report: Richard Habib, the head of Titan Salvage, the US firm that spearheaded the project, celebrated with a bottle of Heineken outside a cafe in Giglio's picturesque harbour. "It was perfection," he told The Daily Telegraph. It was a highly engineered job - it had to be because the stakes were so high. It happened just the way we planned it. Experts had originally predicted that the operation would be completed in around 10 hours but in the end it took nearly twice as long as that. The forces needed to pull the ship upright were greater than expected. It needed a bit more oomph than we had expected. The strand jacks (winches) had to go slower than we'd originally thought. Experts will now embark on weeks of work to patch up the formerly submerged starboard side of the vessel and make sure it is in a stable position. They will have to attach massive hollow steel boxes on the battered starboard hull, which will enable the ship to eventually float free and be towed off to an Italian port to be dismantled. We have challenges ahead but we consider the project 80 per cent complete. We have overcome the biggest difficulties," Mr Habib said, dressed in khaki overalls and drinking his beer with other salvage workers. 05.00 Nick Sloane, the South African chief salvage master, has received a hero's welcome as he came ashore from the barge that had served as the floating command control room for the operation. Brilliant! Perfetto," he said, using some of the Italian he has learned over the past year on Giglio preparing for the operation. It was a struggle, a bit of a roller coaster. But for the whole team it was fantastic. 04.50 Here is the official statement from Concordia: The parbuckling operation has been successfully completed. The wreck is now upright and resting safely on the specially built artificial sea bed, at a depth of approximately 30 meters. 04.35 The righting of the Costa Concordia has been greeted with glee on Twitter. Cheryl Pope sums up the general feeling: 04.20 Here is a full time lapse video of the operation from start to finish, courtesy of the BBC. 04.00 Franco Porcellacchia, project manager for the Concordia's owner, Costa Crociere SpA, said the operation was faultless. We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen. A perfect operation, I must say. 03.40 And here she is, fully upright, one half caked in slime and looking somewhat like a "before and after the makeover" picture. 03.25 AP has some more information on the completion of the raising of the Costa Concordia: Engineers have declared the crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship completely upright after a 19-hour operation to pull it from its side where it capsized last year off Tuscany. Shortly after 4am (02.00 GMT), a foghorn rang out on Giglio Island and the head of Italy's Civil Protection agency, Franco Gabrielli, announced that the ship had reached vertical and that the operation to rotate it was complete. Applause rang out among firefigters in the tent where Mr Gabrielli and other project engineers made the announcement. Officials said there was no apparent pollution in the waters around the ship as a result of the operation. 03.15 It's official! The head of Italy's Civil Protection Authority is holding a press conference to confirm that the salvage operation has been completed. Engineers said they had "reached degree zero, which was our target." 03.05 Some of those who have been following the operation on Twitter are already hailing its success. 02.55 This image shows just how far the ship has come - after hours of careful manipulation it is almost upright. 02.30 For those slightly confused about how the delicate process of raising the ship is being carried out, here is a handy animation that shows clearly step-by-step the different phases of the project. 02.00 The countdown is on - officials say the Concordia could be upright in just three hours. 01.45 Images of the Concordia rising from the blackness are fairly eerie. The Concordia slowly rises from its watery grave 01.24 Despite the lateness of the hour and the slow pace of progress, the operation is still captiviating people around the world. 00.50 The live feeds from the site of the salvage operation show that the ship is now well on its way to sitting upright in the water. NBC has a cool timelapse video showing the early stages of the raising of the ship. 00.15 We now have confirmation that the ship has finally reached the "tipping point." AP reports that shortly before midnight, the Concordia was raised by 25 degrees - after that, engineers said, the effect of gravity started to help the ship's rotation. Engineers have stopped operating the pulleys, and by using remote controls, are carefully opening valves to let seawater start filling huge ballast tanks that had been welded onto the already exposed side. The weight of the water in the tanks will help to pull the cruise liner up much faster. "We're in the final phase of rotation," said Franco Gabrielli, the Italian government official who is overseeing the operation. We have passed the 24 degree mark and now are filling the tanks with water. 00.00 Good progress is being made and the salvage operation has moved into its final stage. The ship is now at a 24 degree rotation and water is going into the large tanks welded onto the side of ship. The weight of the water will help the ship right itself. Engineers have told ITV it may just be four hours now until it is complete. 23.36 The salvage operation is the start of a long journey for the Concordia. Once the ship is upright, salvage teams will spend a months stabilising it and preparing for it to be re-floated with the aid of additional giant buoyancy tanks before it is towed away for scrap. 23.00 As the hours tick by, the ship is starting to emerge more fully from the water. While the salvage crew works through the night, a thick layer of scum can be seen covering the parts of the Costa Concordia that have been underwater. 22.30 Nick Sloane, the salvage master, has reiterated the size of the task facing his team as work on lifting the wreck continues into the night. "We have done parbuckling before but never on a location like this," he told Reuters. She is on the side of a mountain on the seabed, balanced on two reefs and she is a really large ship - she's three football fields long, a hundred thousand tonnes plus ... So it's never been done on this scale," he said. 22.05 A reminder that we still have hours to go. Italy's Civil Protection Authority has said the painstaking work will probably continue until dawn. 21.50 Franco Porcellacchia, leader of Costa Cruise's technical team, is happy with the operation's progress. "The ship is reacting very well because it's rotating in a uniform fashion, which is what we expected but it's a pleasure to see it confirmed," he said. 20.27 Another quite spectacular picture of the Concordia "on its knees." As darkness descends it almost looks like it is falling asleep. 20.07 Nick Squires, our correspondent in Giglio, has written up his dispatch on today's work. There was no hurry to speed up the process - one false move could endanger the whole operation, with the nightmare prospect of the ship breaking up and plunging to the depths. 20.04 Well, the liveblog is now in its 12th hour, but interest doesn't seem to have waned a bit: 20.02 The current angle of the Costa Concordia is 46°, from the original 73°. 20.00 Darkness is falling, but the mission will continue, with workers keen to get the ship out as soon as possible. 19.30 The Costa Concordia is now described as resting on its "knee" rather than its side, but is some way from slotting into place on the specially-built platforms around its base. I've just seen that the operation is said to be costing around half a billion pounds. This is turning into history's most costly salute to shore. 19.25 Officials said remote-operated, unmanned submarines had so far failed to pick up any trace of human remains.Survivors of the disaster said the finding of the bodies was a priority. 18.53 Our correspondent in Giglio Nick Squires has been talking to Roger Frizzell, from Carnival Corp, the American parent company of Genoa-based Costa Cruises, which operated the Concordia. The engineers are being very careful and they are doing a lot of checks. But they can continue into the night - as long as it takes. Nothing on this scale has been attempted before. It's unprecedented. But we have here the strongest team of experts that you could assemble. They are the best in the business. 18.44 It is important to remember the families of missing victims of the ship wreck, many of whom have returned to Giglio today for answers. The two still recorded as missing are Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi and a crew member named Russel Rebello from India. "Naturally, I think of those people who didn't make it and especially for those two families who are still waiting to find the remains of their loved ones," said Luciano Castro, a 49-year-old journalist who was on the ship when it sank. They must still be under the keel of the Concordia and I hope after this finally they will have a grave they can cry over. 18.34 In this latest picture you can see caissons (large boxes at the top and one side of the boat used to repair damage) attached to the stricken Costa Concordia and the cabling used to pull the ship upright: 18.29 The operation - known as parbuckling - was used on the USS Oklahoma in 1943 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But the 1,000ft Concordia has been described as the largest cruise ship ever to capsize and therefore requires the complex rotation so it can be towed away in one piece and dismantled for scrap. 18.20 With more attention on this story today than most others today, this tweet sums it up nicely: 18.10 As a reminder of just how tough the job is, the ship weighs 114,500 tons - making it twice as heavy as the Titanic. 18.07 It will soon be getting dark in Giglio, where it is an hour ahead, making the job far more difficult. While there is still light we will bring you pictures as she is slowly hauled vertical. In the latest one you can clearly see the line of rust, where the ship has been below water for the last 20 months. 17.55 Just a reminder that you can watch footage of the salvage operation here at Telegraph.co.uk via our live video stream. As our Diplomatic Correspondent Alex Spillius notes, the slow pace of progress doesn't make it any less compelling: 17.40 Engineer Sergio Girotto has been speaking with reporters and has provided a late afternoon update on the "parbuckling" operation: It's taking longer than expected. Even if it's 15 to 18 hours, we're OK with that. We are happy with the way things are going. It has also been revealed that progress has been much slower than predicted, with the crippled Concordia not budging for the first three hours after the operation began. But after some 6,000 tons of force were applied - using a complex system of pulleys and counterweights - Girotto said "we saw the detachment" from the reef thanks to undersea cameras. 17.30 You can read Nick Squires's fascinating report on how life has changed for the residents of Giglio in full here. The usually-tranquil island of Giglio (Alamy) Here's another excerpt: While the capsizing of the ship was a tragedy, with 32 people killed and hundreds of others injured and traumatised, it has brought an economic boom to Giglio at a time when the rest of Italy has struggled with a deep recession. "If it wasn't for the fact that people died that night, we'd be putting up a statue of Schettino," said Sergio Roncolini, the owner of a pizzeria in the port. While the salvage workers have made friends on the island, few have managed to master much Italian. "They've learned to say "Buongiorno" and "grazie" but that's about it," said Emanuele Mattera, 37, the owner of a bar. The Anglo-Saxons don't seem to be very good at languages. 17.10 Ever since the Costa Concordia struck its craggy coastline, the backwater island of Giglio has been overrun by an army of Budweiser-swigging, English breakfast-eating workers. Nick Squires reports: But in the 20 months since the Costa Concordia capsized on its granite shores, Giglio has been invaded by an army of foreign salvage workers, mariners and engineers from more than 25 countries. The invasion has been friendly - unlike the regular slave-raiding parties launched by Saracen pirates during the Middle Ages, which forced most of the inhabitants to live in a fortified village at the top of the island. But it has profoundly altered the social and economic dynamic of the island, part of an idyllic archipelago off the coast of Tuscany. Before the disaster Giglio wasn't really known but since then we've been on the front page of newspapers around the world. People look at the wreck of Italy's Costa Concordia cruise ship as she begins to emerge from water near the harbour of Giglio Porto (VINCENZO PINTO/AFP) 16.45 Tom Witherow has been finding out more about the families of the two victims whose bodies are tragically still yet to be found. It is likely that the bodies of Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter, and Maria Grazia Trecarichi, a passenger from Sicily, are either inside the hull of the ship or trapped between the hull and the seabed. The families last gathered at the scene in a commemorative ceremony on 13th January - a year after Captain Schettino's ship struck the Giglio reef leaving 32 dead. Kevin Rebello, brother of Russel, set up a Facebook group in remembrance of his brother. After the memorial service he said: I've not lost hope. I know the official search stopped a long time ago but I will continue to look for my brother's body. Those 30 people who lost loved ones on the Concordia have some closure as they have a body that they have buried and maybe a gravestone to pray at, but we don't have anything. More than anything we would just like to find Russel's body so we can bury him and draw a line on what happened. Kevin paid tribute to the islanders on Giglio and said: "They have been so welcoming and friendly towards me. They have made me feel welcome and at home each time I go to Giglio - the mayor above all has been very friendly and warm. Giglio has become my second home. 16.26 Our man in Italy Nick Squires has more detail on the expected pace of events, as evening approaches on the Mediterranean coast: The salvage operation will take at least another six hours, engineers have announced, with work continuing into the evening and possibly into the night. Cables and jacks will continue to pull the ship upright for another four to six hours. Gravity will then take over - the giant hollow boxes on the left-hand side of the hull will be flooded with water, helping to pull the ship fully upright. That process could take several more hours. Inch by inch, the slime-covered right-hand side of the ship, which has been underwater for 20 months, is emerging into the bright autumn sunshine. "We are taking it slowly and very safely," said Sergio Girotto, one of the chief engineers. 16.18 As we mentioned at 10.00, parbuckling has been used to recover ships for many decades, including the capsized USS Oklahoma, which was raised by the US military in 1943 after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. We've now put together a slideshow of striking black-and-white images from that wartime operation, which shows how similar many of the methods used in the past were to those being employed off Giglio today. The Concordia's owners will hope for a different outcome, however - the USS Oklahoma, after being stripped of her armaments and sold for scrap, sank in a storm while being towed from Hawaii to a breakers yard in San Francisco in 1947. The righting and refloating of the capsized battleship USS Oklahoma was the largest of the Pearl Harbor salvage jobs (Naval History & Heritage Command) 15.45 Here's Nick Squires's video dispatch from Giglio in full, where engineers and journalists alike are bracing themselves for a "righting" process which could go on into the small hours of Tuesday morning: 15.32 Elio Vincenzi, wife of Grazia Trecarichi, one of the victims whose body has never been located, is on the island today to witness today's salvage operation. He told The Times: I'm thinking only of my wife. These have been very hard months without Maria Grazia but I hope with the rotation [of the vessel] they will find her underneath. I'm counting on it. Grazia Trecarichi was on board to celebrate her 50th birthday with her 17-year-old daughter, who survived. 15.25 A timely reminder from the Telegraph's Nick Squires that the raising of Costa Concordia is "just the start" of a long process. Even if the complex process is completed by the early hours of Tuesday morning, it will be next year before the ship leaves Giglio Island. Engineers say that it is too dangerous to try to move the ship away during the autumn months or the winter months because of storms and bad weather. It won't be until the spring or possibly the summer next year that it'll actually be towed away to an Italian port and broken up for scrap. 14.55 Since the weather delay this morning things appear to have progressed smoothly. Officials are now quietly optimistic that the salvage is going to work, as the rust-stained, algae-covered hull of the ship is lifted out of the water inch by inch. Roger Frizzell, chief communications officer for Carnival Corp, the American parent company of Genoa-based Costa Cruises, which operated the Concordia, said: We are really pleased with the progress. After the delay caused by the bad weather it is nice to get back on schedule. Everything is going according to plan. 14.30 Despite the tragedy, it would seem some locals have come to appreciate the crews who have spent more than a year working on the wreckage. Giovanni Andolfi, a 63-year-old resident who spent his career at sea working on tankers and cruise ships and watched the operation from port, told AP the crews were "the best brains in the field," but admitted he was eager to see them finish. "I would like Giglio to return to what it was before, a beautiful place of uncontaminated nature," he said. Gigliese, as locals call themselves, raced to the aid of the survivors who staggered shivering from the sea that wintry night, bringing them blankets, warm clothing and invitations into their homes. 14.20 Tom Witherow has this detailed report of what happened the night the Costa Concordia went down. The ship had left the Italian port of Civitavecchia at 7.18pm local time, heading out for a two-week tour of the Mediterranean with over 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew. On the night of 13th January 2012 Captain Francesco Schettino had ordered the ship to deviate from the planned route as a 'salute' to those on the shore. But at 9.45pm the ship hit a reef, which the captain later claimed was not marked on maps or satellite navigation euqipment. The luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia leans after it ran aground off the coast of Isola del Giglio island, Italy, gashing open the hull and forcing some 4,200 people aboard to evacuate aboard lifeboats to the nearby Isola del Giglio island, Jan. 14, 2012 (AP) 13.55 Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Concordia, has been widely singled out for his role in the disaster. As a reminder, here is part of the exchange that took place with the coastguard the night he was accused of abandoning passengers. CG: "There is no 'please" about it. Go back on board. Assure me you are going back on board! FS: "I am in the lifeboat, under the ship, I haven't gone anywhere, I'm here." CG: "What are you doing?" FS: "I am coordinating..." CG: "What are you coordinating there? Get on board the ship and coordinate the rescue on board. Are you refusing? FS: "No, no I am not refusing." CG: "Are you refusing to go on board? Tell me the reason why you are not going. FS: "I am not going because there is another lifeboat that has stopped." CG: "You get on board. This is an order. You need to continue the rescue. You called the evacuation, now I am in charge. You need to go on board the ship, is that clear? 13.25 Nick Squires has more on the fact that the two bodies yet to be recovered have not been found today. The bodies of two victims of the disaster were never recovered and officials say so far there is no sign of them. The missing people are Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter, and Maria Grazia Trecarichi, a passenger from Sicily who was on the cruise to celebrate her 50th birthday. "At the moment there are no indications (of the presence of human remains)," said Franco Gabrielli, the Italian official in command of the operation. It's still too early to say (whether they will be found). The bodies could either be inside the hull of the ship or trapped between the hull and the seabed. 13.20 Although The Telegraph is pleased with their own graphic on how the Concordia will be raised, which you can find here, the Sydney Morning Herald's is also worth a look. More than anything else, it points out how the reef slopes off so quickly. It says if the wreck had not been quickly braced, it could have fallen far deeper and become impossible to recover in one piece. It helps explain how the Concordia got itself into this predicament. 13.04 Now that the ship has been raised somewhat, we can see some of the rust that has formed under water. The ship above water has remained largely white, but as you can see below, there has been a fair amount of wear and tear. 13.02 The submerged side of the Concordia has a "major deformation" detected by cameras and instruments, according to Civil Protection Department Chief Franco Gabrielli, speaking to ANSA. Gabrielli said that it will only be possible to assess the extent of the damage when the so-called parbuckling operation is complete. 12.54 For those who can't remember what the fuss is about, we have published a comprehensive timeline beginning on January 13, 2012, the night the ship capsized, up until the present day. January 13, 2012: The liner sets sail from the port of Civitavecchia near Rome, carrying 4,229 people from 70 countries. Many passengers are sitting down to dinner when the ship strikes a rocky outcrop off the Tuscan island of Giglio, after captain Francesco Schettino orders a sail-by. The blackout sparks panic and the ship begins to list. Evacuation gets under way in the darkness more than an hour after the collision, by which point the lifeboats on one side of the tilting liner are unusable. People jump into the freezing waters to escape while Schettino is found ashore. 12.43 The Concordia story is generating a lot of interest, on social media, which, as Peter Foster, usually our US Editor, but today just watching in fascination, says is a bit odd considering how slowly it's moving. 12.30 With the salvage operation now well underway, lots of people are wondering what happened to "Captain Calamity" - Francesco Schettino, the Costa Concordia captain. As the recovery of his ship gets underway, he is believed to be at home with his wife in the seaside town of Meta di Sorrento, near Naples. His trial, in which he faces charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship, started in July in Grosseto in Tuscany, the closest city to the scene of the disaster. He claims that the rocky reef that the ship hit on the night of Jan 13 2012 was not marked on his nautical charts - despite the fact that it appears on tourist maps of Giglio. Captian Francesco Schettino arrives for his trial, in Grosseto, Italy (AP Photo/Giacomo Aprili) At the hearing, his lawyer denied that the captain had deliberately abandoned ship, instead insisting that the skipper had been inadvertently thrown off the ship by accident. Capt Schettino has previously claimed that he accidentally "tripped" and tumbled into a lifeboat, which was then lowered and took him to shore. 12.00 The latest press briefing has just taken place on Giglio, where officials have confirmed that the operation is going to plan and that the ship has been pulled free from the rocky reefs on which it was wedged. The ship has been raised by three degrees - that means there's another 62 degrees to go before it is upright. "Things are going as planned, so a certain amount of optimism is justified," said Franco Gabrielli, the Italian official in overall command of the operation. The game is not over but things are going according to plan. So far the ship has not emitted any dirty water or debris, he said. The water is clean for now. But we are conscious of the fact that we are right at the beginning. Sergio Girotto, a chief engineer, said the side of the ship that has been lying in water for 20 months had suffered "huge damage" and deformation. That damage is apparently no worse than expected by the engineers, but they will be keeping a close eye on it as the parbuckling process continues. 11.45 First word on the state of the salvage operation from the engineers - according to AP, engineers say they have successfully detached the capsized Concordia from the reef. If this is the case it is promising news for the operation, as the first couple of hours were expected to be critical, with engineers unsure how deeply embedded pieces of the granite seabed were in the submerged side of the hull. No bodies have yet been seen. 11.30 New images emerging from Giglio show the scale not just of the operation itself, but also the global interest in this unprecedented salvage attempt - visit the full picture gallery here. Salvagers put the final cables in place in preparation for the cruise ship Costa Concordia to be rightened off the coast of Giglio, Italy (EPA/ANGELO CARCONI) Reporters and cameramen work with the backdrop of the Costa Concordia ship off the coast of the Island of Giglio, Italy (ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images) 11.10 Nick Squires has this update on the painstaking progress being made as the Concordia is slowly rotated onto its keel: Progress is being made and the ship is slowly being hauled out of the water - three hours into the operation. The dirty scum line around the ship's hull has risen - I would say by at least a metre. But there is still a very long way to go. This is the slowest, most delicate part of the operation, as the ship is wrenched slowly off the rocky reefs on which it has been wedged for 20 months. 10.40 The locals seem to be taking the media circus surrounding the salvage operation in good humour, if this T-shirt on sale in Giglio's main port is anything to go by: 10.30 With the epic recovery attempt now under way after a three-hour delay caused by bad weather, Nick Squires wraps up the morning's events so far: Giglio, the Italian island where the cruise liner capsized 20 months ago with the loss of 32 lives, was hit by a violent thunderstorm overnight. Divers who were working underwater on the hull of the ship had to be pulled out of the water, leading to a delay in preparations. But the salvage effort finally got under way at 9am local time (8am UK). The operation is expected to take up to 12 hours. The 950ft-long ship, which weighs more than twice as much as the Titanic, is being gradually raised from the rocky shelf on which it is wedged with the help of massive steel cables and powerful winches attached to pylons sunk into the granite. Giant steel boxes attached to the upturned, port side of the ship will help roll it over onto six steel platforms underwater, together covering an area larger than a football pitch. Reporters and cameramen work with the backdrop of the Costa Concordia ship off the coast of the Island of Giglio, Italy Click here for Nick's full report. 10.15 More details have emerged on the reasons for this morning's delay, which saw the start of the salvage operation pushed back by three hours. According to AP, the early morning storm pushed back a floating command room center from its position close to the wreckage. From there, engineers are using remote controls to guide the synchronised leverage system of pulleys, counterweights and huge chains looped under the Concordia's carcass to delicately nudge the ship free from its rocky seabed perch just outside Giglio Island's harbor. The partially submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia is to be salvaged (AFP/Getty) The first couple of hours will be critical, according to the engineers. Pieces of the granite seabed are embedded in the submerged side of the hull, which divers haven't been able to fully inspect. Asked how long it would take for people on shore to see the ship making significant movement toward the vertical, Girotto said that "after a couple of hours, you should be able to see something visible from a distance." 10.00 There has been a lot of talk about "parbuckling" today, but as Nick Squires explains, this unfamiliar term is rooted in maritime history: The technique used to raise the Concordia - known as "parbuckling" - is not new technology and in fact has its origins in the 19th century. Parbuckling means rotating a sunken or stricken ship in order to return it to a vertical position. The technique has been used in the past mainly to recover warships, notably the capsized USS Oklahoma, which was raised by the US military in 1943 after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. La Repubblica has archive pictures of the operation here. The fate of the Oklahoma does not augur well for the Concordia, however. She was stripped of her armaments and sold for scrap, but while being towed from Hawaii to a breakers yard in San Francisco in 1947, sank in a storm. 09.30 Amid all the excitement surrounding the largest salvage of its kind in maritime history, there is a poignant, sombre side to today's Costa Concordia recovery. Underwater submarines known as Remote Operated Vehicles or ROVs are monitoring the operation from beneath the sea surface, and in particular will be on the lookout for human remains. The bodies of a middle-aged Italian woman and an Indian waiter were never recovered despite extensive underwater searches, and may be inside the Concordia. Source: CNN 09.20 Here is the latest statement from the engineering consortium that is leading the salvage: At 9.00am the Titan Micoperi Consortium announced that Parbuckling operations had commenced. Capt Nick Sloane, the Senior Salvage Master, gave the order to activate the commands that will be sent from the Control Room on the barge "Polluce" in the immediate vicinity of the bow of the Concordia. All commands and signals - e.g. activation of strand jacks, opening and closing of sponson valves, information about the position of the wreck - will be sent to and from the barge control room via two separate "umbilicals" (one used as a back-up for the other); these are cables arranged between the control room and the ship guaranteeing communication between the two. The team operating in the Barge Control Room includes 11 experts: a dedicated Ballast Engineer, ROV pilots, engineers who are strandjack specialists, a computer engineer and a design engineer. The team members in the control room will operate all the systems and monitor progress using 8 monitors. Five TV cameras with five microphones have been placed on the highest deck of the Concordia; the images and sounds monitored during the parbuckling will allow the engineers to make adjustments depending on any twist and torsion arising on the ship. 09.10 Although officials are outwardly confident of the operation going to plan (as 09.00), not everyone on the island of Giglio is so sure, Nick Squires reports: The waiting game begins. The salvage operation is expected to take at least 10 hours so will go on into the evening. Italian officials say they are "100 per cent" confident that they can pull off this immense task successfully. But there is great apprehension on the island - the Concordia is twice as big as the Titanic and an operation on this scale has never been attempted before. Camera crews and photographers have staked out positions on the two harbour moles that face the wreck, which lies just a few hundred yards away. A police helicopter is buzzing over Giglio and tugs and barges buzz around the Concordia. For good measure, there is an Italian navy warship with a helicopter on board. 09.00 So we're under way, but what exactly is going to happen over the next 10-12 hours? Well, if all goes to plan the salvage will take the form of a 5-step process, as explained in our handy infographic: Click here to view a larger version. 08.30 The announcement that the operation is officially under way was made at a press conference in Giglio's port, from where there is a clear view of the wreck. "All is well," with the operation, said Sergio Girotto, a senior engineer from Micoperi, the Italian salvage company which together with an American firm, Titan, is leading the salvage effort. Our estimate of 12 hours (for the completion of the job) remains valid, although it will depend on the behaviour of the wreck. The progress of the highly complex operation will be constantly monitored by cameras attached to remote-operated, unmanned submarines. Sulphurous gas is likely to be emitted from the wreck as it is rolled upright, produced by the vast quantities of rotting food, drink and other supplies inside the ship, said Franco Porcellacchia, a senior project manager with Costa Cruises, the Italian company that owns the cruise ship. "That's something that we will keep a check on constantly," he said. 08.10 Engineers have just announced that the salvage operation officially got underway at 9am local time, 8am UK time, after a three hour delay. 08.00 The sun has well and truly risen on the Costa Concordia, but the salvage operation which was due to begin at first light is yet to get under way. As small boats prepare anti-pollution booms ahead of the main parbuckling operation, here's a reminder of some of the debris inside the cruise ship which may spill out over the course of the day: Trapped inside the upturned hull are more than 24,000lbs of fish, nearly 5,500lbs of cheese, 1,500 gallons of ice cream in tubs, 24,000lbs of pasta, 2,000lbs of onions, more than 2,000 pots of jam and nearly 17,000 tea bags. Rotting beneath the waterline are more than 17,000lbs of raw beef, nearly 11,000 eggs, 2,346 hot dog buns, 815lbs of rabbit meat and more than 1,000 gallons of milk. Some of the food and drink is sealed, presenting less of a pollution risk, including 18,000 bottles of wine, 22,000 cans of Coca-Cola, 1,000 bottles of extra virgin olive oil, 46,000 miniature bottles of spirits and 10 bottles of communion wine for the ship's chapel. 07.50 Here is the latest official statement from the consortium masterminding the salvage. No word yet on exactly when the operation will begin: The salvage Master Nick Sloane and the technicians of the operations team are embarking to reach the control room (on a barge which is now positioned off the bow of the Concordia). In the meantime the operations for the positioning of the operating units are still ongoing. The connections with the control room have been activated and systems testing is proceeding. Once this operation is completed, the parbuckling can begin. There are no technical problems. 07.40 The salvage operation appears to be suffering further delay, although there is plenty of activity taking place around the Costa Concordia. Preparations for the salvage are ongoing but it has yet to start. Small boats are dragging long orange anti-pollution booms into position - they will surround the ship and are designed to collect the debris that is expected to spew out of the hull when the cruise liner is hauled upright. Engineers and salvage experts in yellow hard hats are on the ship's hull and working on the giant hollow compartments welded to the ship - they will provide buoyancy and help raise it. 07.20 As today's unprecedented salvage operation officially gets under way, you can watch events unfold here at Telegraph.co.uk with our live video stream throughout the day: 06.45 So how will the operation work? Once we get under way, with the official start time now just 15 minutes away, workers will employ a complex system of hydraulically driven jacks and steel cables to pull and push the ship off the rocks and set it upright. If this inital operation is successful the ship will rest on an underwater platform until spring 2014, when the ship will be refloated and towed away. The salvage experts responsible for the attempt are confident the plan will not break up the ship, despite its large size. 06.20 The main operation is due to get underway in 40 minutes. This is the scene as the sun slowly comes up over Giglio. 06.10 Costa Concordia salvage operation by numbers 30,000 tons - the amount of steel that has been used to construct the platforms, buoyancy compartments and other components necessary for the salvage operation - equivalent to four times the weight of the Eiffel Tower. Six - the number of steel platforms constructed on the seabed, on which the ship will come to rest after it is rolled upright. If placed end-to-end they would cover an area 1.5 times the size of a football field. 1,180 - the number of sacks of cement placed in a gap between the steel platforms to bolster the stable artificial seabed on which the ship will rest. They will be painstakingly removed at the end of the recovery operation and the seabed returned to its natural state. The marine environment will be monitored by marine biologists for the next five years. Click through for more staggering details of the scale of the operation 05.45 This is the reason we have a slight delay this morning, some incredible electrical storms last night that forced workers out of the water. The delay to the salvage operation was the result of the "violent storm" which swept over Giglio during the night. The mountainous island, which lies off the coast of Tuscany, is part of an archipelago that is often subject to sharp changes in the weather. The storm meant that it was not possible to carry out some of our operations. There are no technical complications. It's just because of the weather," said Franco Gabrielli, the head of the Civil Protection agency, a government department that deals with disasters. The Concordia was just a shadowy silhouette a little while ago but is now coming into sharp relief as the sun rises. 05.35 Nick Squires, who is on Giglio Island, confirms the announcement with some more details: The start of the salvage operation has been delayed as a result of a big thunderstorm that hit the island of Giglio last night. The operation was due to start at 6am local time (5am UK time) but will instead commence about two hours later. Divers were working on the wreck overnight but because of the thunder and lightning we had to get them out of the water, so things are delayed a bit," said Nick Sloane, the South African salvage master who is head of the operation. Drinking a coffee in a tiny bar on the waterfront of Giglio's port, just a few hundred yards from the shipwreck, he said he was feeling "confident and relaxed" about the prospects of success. I'm feeling fine. We'll see how it goes. We have a great team. Mr Sloane, who has nearly 30 years" experience in ship salvaging, has been based on Giglio since May last year. 05.30 Something of a false start this morning. We've just had official word that the operation has been delayed by two hours just as it was about to begin. Still plenty of activity around the vessel with tug boats shining lights (it's still dark in Italy) and workmen attaching cables and supports. But the real business will not get started for a little while yet. 05.00 Our man on the Island of Giglio, Nick Squires, sets the scene for how the day will play out, if everything goes according to plan: After 16 months of hard work and intensive preparation, the operation to raise the Costa Concordia began at 6am local time, 5am UK time, this morning. If all goes according to plan, it should take between 10 and 12 hours. The massive cruise liner, which capsized in January 2012 after its captain, Francesco Schettino, took it too close to the island of Giglio, will be raised by 65 degrees so that it is sitting vertically in the water. The official go-ahead for the operation was given on Sunday after officials checked the weather forecast and decided that conditions would be favourable. At a press conference on the island, they were repeatedly pressed as to how confident they were that the ship would withstand the huge stresses of the operation and that it would be raised successfully. "One hundred per cent," said Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's Civil Protection agency, which deals with disasters and emergencies. But it will not be until the afternoon that experts can judge definitely whether the operation has been a success. Nick Sloane, the South African engineer who is in charge of the salvage effort, was asked what reassurance he could give the islanders of Giglio that the operation would be successful. I'd like to reassure them that we have done a lot of checks and we have implemented additional measures to what was planned a year ago. We have found where the ship's weak points are and we have mitigated them," he said. Franco Porcellacchia, a senior project manager with Costa Cruises, the Italian company that owns the cruise ship, said: "We have evaluated all the possibilities. There's is every chance that the operation will succeed. Even if today's operation is successful, it will be many months before the Costa Concordia will be towed away from Giglio. The ship will remain off the island all winter and won't be floated away until the late spring or summer. It will be taken to an Italian port - Piombino in Tuscany is one contender, as is Palermo in Sicily - and broken up for scrap. The progress of the operation will be monitored underwater by five unmanned submarines called Remote Operated Vehicles. They are equipped with cameras which will relay images back to a control room that has been set up on a barge positioned near the bow of the ship. More than 500 divers, engineers and salvage experts are involved in the operation. The entire operation will be by remote control. Thirty-two people died in the disaster but the bodies of two of the victims have still not been recovered - Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter, and Maria Grazia Trecarichi, a passenger from Sicily. Her husband, Elio Vincenzi, 64, says he bears no hatred towards Capt Francesco Schettino, the Costa Concordia's skipper, but just wants his wife's remains to be recovered. "Perhaps if (Schettino) had given the order to abandon ship earlier, my wife would have been saved," he told La Repubblica newspaper. But I don't feel hate or rancour. I just want to find my wife's body, to bury her in Sicily and to know what happened in those last minutes. Mr Vincenzi, a maths teacher close to retirement, said that on the night of the disaster his wife, who was on the cruise with their daughter, Stefania, decided to go below deck to fetch a jacket - a decision that may have cost her her life. She was wearing a light and elegant evening dress and so she went back down to her cabin to get a jacket, it was very cold. In the chaos of those moments Stefania managed to get onto a lifeboat and arrive on dry land on Giglio. But his wife was not seen again. Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of attempts to raise the Costa Concordia from the waters off the Island of Giglio, where she has been resting for 19 months after she capsized in an accident that cost the lives of 32 people on board. Stay with us through the day for all the latest developments, reaction and analysis of an operation the size of which has never before been attempted.