Memorials honor cruise-ship victims

Relatives of the 32 victims of the Costa Concordia grounding approach the shipwreck aboard a ferry Sunday off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy.
Relatives of the 32 victims of the Costa Concordia grounding approach the shipwreck aboard a ferry Sunday off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy.

— Survivors of the Costa Concordia shipwreck and relatives of the 32 people who died marked the first anniversary of the grounding 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 into 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 ocean liner 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 foghorns 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 tearfully 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. But others seemed to have also found comfort in going to 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.

Later Sunday, a minute of silence was scheduled for 9:45 p.m., the moment when the Concordia slammed into the reef after Capt. Francesco Schettino took it off its pre-programmed course and guided it closer to Giglio as a favor to friends from the island.

Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and leaving the ship before all passengers were evacuated. He hasn’t been charged but is living under court-ordered restrictions pending a decision on whether to indict him. Schettino has said he saved lives by taking the ship closer to shore rather than letting it sink in the open sea, and said the reef he hit wasn’t on his nautical charts.

In an interview broadcast Sunday with RAI state television, Schettino again defended his actions and blamed others on the bridge for failing to inform him of the situation in time, and then of botching his orders once he tried to steer clear of the reef.

At Schettino’s home in Meta di Sorrento, on the Gulf of Naples, no one answered the doorbell Sunday and the window shutters were closed.

Taking part in the anniversary commemoration was Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian coast guard, who became something of a hero to survivors after his recorded conversations with Schettino during the evacuation were made public. In them, De Falco excoriated Schettino for having abandoned the ship before all passengers were off and ordered him to return.

De Falco said he wanted to go to Giglio to “embrace the victims, and the relatives of the victims.” De Falco said he has shied from media attention since the disaster out of respect for the victims.

The Concordia remains on its side. Officials now say it may take until September to prepare the ship to be rolled upright and towed from the rocks to a port to be dismantled - an operation on a scale that has never before been attempted.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/14/2013

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