Recovery operations on board the Costa Concordia have been suspended as rough Tuscan seas cause the capsized ship to move four centimetres in up to six hours.

Officials told media yesterday that they were forced to suspend fuel removal and the search for missing people on the half sunken ship as waves more than one metre continue to hit on the Tuscan coast, News.com reported.

The news comes almost two weeks after the vessel suffered rock inflicted damages off the coast of Isola del Giglio, Italy.

Officials said suspended operations meant that it could now take up to ten months to remove the ship from its current location.

"Our first goal was to find people alive," National Civil Protection official Franco Gabrielli told media.

"Now we have a single, big goal, and that is that this does not translate into an environmental disaster."

According to Mr Gabrielli, the ship’s 15 tanks of fuel would take up to 28 days to remove, however workers are also required to locate 350 cubic metres of diesel and fuel from the engine room.

Meanwhile to date up to 18 bodies have been retrieved from the capsized ship with one remaining unidentified.