Last Victim of Costa Concordia Wreck Believed Found

The prow of cruise liner Costa Concordia is seen during the refloat operation at Giglio harbour at Giglio Island July 21, 2014. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

ROME, Nov 3 (Reuters) – A corpse found in the wreck of the Costa Concordia is thought to be that of the last person unaccounted for almost three years after the luxury liner sank, Italy’s coast guard said on Monday.

Russel Rebello, an Indian who worked as a waiter on the ship when it hit rocks and sank off the Tuscan coast in January 2012, killing 32 people, had been the only person missing after the disaster whose body has not yet been found.

A Coast Guard spokeswoman in the northern port city of Genoa, where the 290-metre-long (957-foot-long) hulk was towed for scrap in July, told Reuters a body found on the ship was “assumed to be the last victim, Russel Rebello.”

In August, authorities announced they had found remains on the ship and would test them to see if they belonged to Rebello. Italian media later reported that those remains were determined to be lamb bones.

The sinking of the Concordia, a floating hotel as long as three football pitches laid end-to-end, prompted a chaotic night-time evacuation and one of the largest maritime salvage operations in history. (Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Mark Heinrich)