Victims of Italy shipwreck mark anniversary

GIGLIO, Italy -- 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 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 massive 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 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. And later, under 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 preprogrammed course and brought 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 maintains he saved lives by bringing the ship closer to shore rather than letting it sink in the open sea, and claims the reef he hit wasn't on his nautical charts.