Dutch firm Smit Salvage has been hired by the owners of the Costa Concordia to pump thousands of tons of fuel from the stricken cruise liner lying on its side off the Italian coast, a spokesman said.
"The owner of the vessel has asked us to ensure that the oil is brought out of the vessel safely," Martijn Schuttevaer, spokesman for Boskalis, Smit's holding company, told AFP.
He said the operation was expected to start within days, but added, "The first focus at this point is still to find those people who are missing."
Twenty Smit workers were expected to be on the Tuscan island of Giglio, where the Costa Concordia ran aground on Friday night with 4,200 people aboard and capsized, by late today, Schuttevaer said.
The rest depended on the arrival of the necessary equipment and the stability of the liner, whose tanks contain some 2,380 tons of fuel oil.
Schuttevaer added, "The insurers and the owner of the vessel will still have to decide on what they want to do with the vessel and to make a decision" on how to go about it.
Rescuers were forced Monday to suspend briefly the search of the wreck because of bad weather, the...
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