Concordia survivors mark first anniversary

Survivors of the Costa Concordia shipwreck and relatives of the 32 people who died marked the first anniversary of the grounding yesterday with the unveiling of memorials to the victims, a Mass in their honour and a minute of silence to recall the exact moment that the cruise ship rammed into a reef off Tuscany.

The first event of yesterday’s day-long commemoration was the return to the sea of part of the massive rock that tore a 230ft gash in the hull of the ocean liner on Jan 13, 2012. The boulder remained embedded in the mangled steel as the 112,000-ton vessel capsized along with its 4,200 passengers and crew.

As fog horns wailed, a crane on a tug lowered the boulder onto the reef off Giglio, 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 slate grey sky.