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1 March 2013, 00:00
Survivors of the Costa Concordia disaster returned to the scene of the shipwreck to mark the one-year anniversary, defying a request from the cruise company that they stay away.
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In the days before the Sunday ceremony, owners Costa Crociere sent a letter to all passengers who survived the capsizing, and asked them not to travel to the Italian island of Giglio for ‘logistical reasons’.
Undeterred, some of the 3,200 surviving passengers, and relatives of the 32 who lost their lives, were taken by boat close to the wreck.
They watched as a crane lowered part of a rock that was removed from the hull of the 950 ft long ship into the water. The rock has been carved into a memorial and adorned with a plaque.
A Catholic Mass was held in memory of the tragedy after which the islanders, passengers and relatives gathered observed a minute's silence at 9.45 - the time of the ship's collision with the rocks off the coast of Giglio
‘After a year we are still traumatised,’ said Violet Morreau, a survivor from France, who was in the restaurant area with 10 family members the ship hit the rocks before keeling over on its side off the Tuscan island.
‘No one told us what to do. We were scared of dying, like the people who did lose their lives, because of somebody else's recklessness,’ Morreau said.
‘I remember the shock, we weren't able to understand what was happening,’ said Anna di Pavia, who was on the cruise with her husband and 1-year-old son.
‘We are here to thank the inhabitants of Giglio, but we are also here to seek answers that never seem to arrive. How could something like this have happened?’ she said.
Taking part in the anniversary commemoration was Captain 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, Capt De Falco excoriated Schettino for having abandoned the ship before all passengers were off and ordered him to return.
Capt De Falco said he wanted to go to Giglio to ‘embrace the victims, and the relatives of the victims.’ He added that he has shied from media attention since the disaster out of respect for the victims.
‘I'm not a hero,’ he told reporters in Giglio on Sunday. ‘I just did my job.’
Indian waiter Russel Rebello was one of the two victims whose bodies were never recovered. Kevin Rebello, his brother, spent weeks on Giglio in the aftermath of the disaster awaiting word of the fate of his sibling and said he could not sleep ahead of Sunday's anniversary.
‘I have been constantly thinking it is going to be again the same agony, even tonight, because it is going to be the same exact moment when all this happened,’ he said on Sunday. ‘So my heart is beating a bit faster I guess.’
The letter asking people not to travel to Giglio for the ceremony, sent by Costa Crociere, sparked fury among survivors last week.
Anne Decre, of the French Survivors’ Collective of Costa Concordia passengers, says that the company ‘has had an inhumane and unacceptable attitude from the start.’
Costa Crociere has asked survivors to appreciate its position, stating in the letter that they are 'certain that you will understand the impossibility – for logistical reasons – of welcoming you all onto the island that day, and the desire for privacy expressed by the families of the victims at such a difficult moment.’
It adds that the company ‘sincerely shares the pain and sadness’ of those who were caught up in the disaster.
Ms Decre has accused the company of trying to funnel survivors towards one of several parallel ceremonies that will be taking place around the world.
'They tried to buy our silence by offering us €125 (£102) to go to Paris.
'The islanders understand us. We want to come also so we can thank them for what they did that night.’
Salvage crews are working on refloating the wreck in what would be the largest ever operation of its kind. U.S. firm Titan Salvage said on Saturday the ship would be removed by September at the latest.
The 114,500-tonne liner will be pulled upright by cranes, helped by tanks attached to its sides filled with air, and the ship will be towed to an Italian port and broken up.
The vessel's owner Costa Cruises, a unit of Miami-based Carnival Corp, now expects the removal to cost £248 million, more than its original £186 million estimate.
A total of 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew were on board the Costa Concordia when it sank. Whilst 30 bodies have been recovered, two people are still missing, presumed dead.