GIGLIO, Italy — Survivors of the Costa Concordia shipwreck and relatives of the 32 people who died marked the first anniversary of the grounding on Sunday with the unveiling of memorials to the victims, a tearful Mass in their honor and a minute of silence to recall the exact moment that the cruise ship rammed a reef off Tuscany.
One of the most moving tributes came first, with the daybreak return to the sea of part of the rock that tore a 230-foot gash into the hull of the ship on Jan. 13, 2012, when the captain took it off course in a stunt. The boulder remained embedded in the mangled steel as the 112,000-ton vessel capsized off Giglio island along with its 4,200 passengers and crew.
As fog horns and sirens wailed, a crane on a tug lowered the boulder back onto the reef off Giglio where it belonged, returning it to the seabed affixed with a memorial plaque. Relatives of the dead threw flowers into the sea and embraced as they watched the ceremony from a special ferry that bobbed in the waves under a gray sky.
They wept during the Mass and ran their fingers over the names of the 32 dead that were engraved on a bronze plaque unveiled at the end of Giglio‘s jetty, near where the Concordia still lies on its side. Later, amid a cold rain, they gathered on the jetty holding candles to observe a moment of silence at 9:45 p.m., the exact moment when the Concordia slammed into the reef after Capt. Francesco Schettino took it off its pre-programmed course and brought it closer to Giglio as a favor to friends from the island.
While many tears were shed on Sunday, relatives to have found comfort in coming to the tiny fishing island of Giglio, where residents opened their homes and hearts to the survivors that frigid night.
“Having the possibility to see everything, we can accept it a bit more, but there is still a long way to overcome this loss, especially for my mother who suffered a lot for her son,” said Madeleine Costilla Mendoza, whose brother Tomas Alberto Costilla Mendoza of Peru was a steward on the ship.
Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and leaving the ship before all passengers were evacuated. He has not been charged but is living under court-ordered restrictions pending a decision on whether to indict him.
The captain maintains he saved lives by bringing the ship closer to shore rather than letting it sink in the open sea, and claims the reef his ship hit was not indicated on his nautical charts.
Source: The Associated Press
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