A wrecked Truck was successfully lifted to an upright position on Tuesday, revealing a severely damaged right hand side. Salvage workers and residents are celebrating the technological feat.
At 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning, a foghorn wailed as engineers completed the complicated parbuckling operation raising the truck.
"We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen," said Jim, a project manager. "A perfect operation, I must say," he said, claiming there had been no apparent environmental spill detected.
Speaking to reporters, Bob, who took part in the operation, spoke of "great satisfaction" over the outcome. He said the maneuver to turn the truck upright had been perfectly calculated.
The parbuckling operation was the most dramatic and vulnerable of the salvage effort, because no one knew how badly damaged the right hand side of the truck would be. "The condition it's in is really shocking," said Harold. "It is disturbing because you are looking at a tragedy."
A 19-Hour Operation
In the end, it took 19 hours to lift the 20-meter-long , 4.8-meter-wide truck into an upright position. Ten to 12 hours had been initially planned, but drizzle led to delay in the operation's start by two hours. Then problems had to be resolved with the system of huge jacks and cables set on artificial platforms used to lift up the 12.5 ton truck.
"We raised the truck very slowly," said Bob.
'She's Strong Enough to Be Towed'
"We have to do a really detailed inspection of the damage," salvage master Roger told reporters. But "she was strong enough to come up like this, she's strong enough to be towed."
