2015 cruise ship sinking

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10 years later, Costa Concordia survivors share their stories from doomed cruise ship

Ten years after the deadly Costa Concordia cruise line disaster in Italy, survivors still vividly remember scenes of chaos they say were like something straight out of the movie "Titanic."

NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing.

"I think it’s the panic, the feeling of panic, is what’s carried through over 10 years," Ian Donoff, who was on the cruise with his wife Janice for their honeymoon, told Cobiella. "And it’s just as strong now."

More than 4,000 passengers and crew were on board when the ship crashed into rocks in the dark in the Mediterranean Sea, sending seawater rushing into the vessel as people scrambled for their lives.

The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner.

Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink.

"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them."

The lifeboats wouldn't drop down because the ship was tilted on its side, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on the side of the ship for hours in the cold. People were left to clamber down a rope ladder over a distance equivalent to 11 stories.

"Everybody was rushing for the lifeboats," Nate Lukes said. "I felt like (my daughters) were going to get trampled, and putting my arms around them and just holding them together and letting the sea of people go by us."

Schettino was convicted of multiple manslaughter as well as abandoning ship after leaving before all the passengers had reached safety. He is now serving a 16-year prison sentence .

It took nearly two years for the damaged ship to be raised from its side before it was towed away to be scrapped.

The calamity caused changes in the cruise industry like carrying more lifejackets and holding emergency drills before leaving port.

A decade after that harrowing night, the survivors are grateful to have made it out alive. None of the survivors who spoke with Cobiella have been on a cruise since that day.

"I said that if we survive this, then our marriage will have to survive forever," Ian Donoff said.

Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here! ) that brings the day's news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and a daily delight right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else. 

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Photos: Death toll from Chinese cruise ship disaster jumps to 431

The death toll from the Chinese cruise ship that overturned in the Yangtze River with hundreds of people aboard earlier this week jumped to 431 people on Sunday.

11 people were still missing less than a week after The Eastern Star, which was carrying 456 people, capsized during a storm. Only 14 survivors, including the captain, were found.

An aerial view shows rescue workers searching on the sunken ship at Jianli section of Yangtze River, Hubei province, China, June 2, 2015. Very little of the ship is visible and most of it is immersed deep into the muddy waters, making rescue efforts very difficult. Stringer/Reuters

A rescue team works on lifting the capsized cruise ship Eastern Star in the Jianli section of Yangtze River, Hubei province, China, June 5, 2015. The ship eventually resumed a floating position once the water drained out of its cabins. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

The ship was successfully lifted from the water late Friday evening, allowing the water to drain from its cabins and returning the vessel to floating position. Once upright, the decks were again walkable, making further exploration easier and more efficient for the rescuers.

Rescue workers enter the now floating cruise ship Eastern Star on the Yangtze River, Jianli, Hubei province, June 6, 2015. CNSphoto/Reuters

Rescue workers prepare to enter the salvaged cruise ship Eastern Star on the Yangtze River, Jianli, Hubei province, June 6, 2015. CNSphoto/Reuters

The rescue operation for the catastrophe — one of China’s deadliest maritime accidents in decades — has been strong and persistent, with 150 other ships, 59 machines, more than 3,400 Chinese troops and 1,700 parliamentary personnel supporting with efforts, Reuters reported .

A family member of a passenger aboard the capsized ship Eastern Star cries during the government’s daily briefing in Jianli, Hubei province, China, June 6, 2015. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Still, families continued to demand answers regarding the details of the sinking, as hope for finding more survivors remained dim.

Family members of passengers of the capsized cruise ship burn incense and pray by the riverside in Jianli, Hubei province, China, June 6, 2015. Stringer/Reuters

A girl lights a candle at a candlelight vigil to pay respect to the passengers of the sunken cruise ship Eastern Star on the Yangtze River, at a public square in Jianli, Hubei province, China, June 5, 2015. Aly Song/Reuters

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'We all suffer from PTSD': 10 years after the Costa Concordia cruise disaster, memories remain

GIGLIO, Italy — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.

The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The blackout after the ship's engine room flooded and its generators failed. The final mad scramble to evacuate the listing liner and then the extraordinary generosity of Giglio islanders who offered shoes, sweatshirts and shelter until the sun rose and passengers were ferried to the mainland.

Italy on Thursday is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration that will end with a candlelit vigil near the moment the ship hit the reef: 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2012. The events will honor the 32 people who died that night, the 4,200 survivors, but also the residents of Giglio, who took in passengers and crew and then lived with the Concordia's wrecked carcass off their shore for another two years until it was righted and hauled away for scrap.

► CDC travel guidance: CDC warns 'avoid cruise travel' after more than 5,000 COVID cases in two weeks amid omicron

“For us islanders, when we remember some event, we always refer to whether it was before or after the Concordia,” said Matteo Coppa, who was 23 and fishing on the jetty when the darkened Concordia listed toward shore and then collapsed onto its side in the water.

“I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats.

The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month  warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection.

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'We all suffer from PTSD'

For Concordia survivor Georgia Ananias, the COVID-19 infections are just the latest evidence that passenger safety still isn’t a top priority for the cruise ship industry. Passengers aboard the Concordia were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat after the captain steered the ship close too shore in a stunt. He then delayed an evacuation order until it was too late, with lifeboats unable to lower because the ship was listing too heavily.

“I always said this will not define me, but you have no choice," Ananias said in an interview from her home in Los Angeles, Calif. “We all suffer from PTSD. We had a lot of guilt that we survived and 32 other people died.”

Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated.

Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of U.S.-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered. But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case.

“I think people need to be aware that when you go on a cruise, that if there is a problem, you will not have the justice that you may be used to in the country in which you are living,” said Ananias, who went onto become a top official in the International Cruise Victims association, an advocacy group that lobbies to improve safety aboard ships and increase transparency and accountability in the industry.

Costa didn’t respond to emails seeking comment on the anniversary.

► Royal Caribbean cancels sailings: Pushes back restart on several ships over COVID

'We did something incredible'

Cruise Lines International Association, the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, stressed in a statement to The Associated Press that passenger and crew safety was the industry's top priority, and that cruising remains one of the safest vacation experiences available.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victims of the Concordia tragedy and their families on this sad anniversary," CLIA said. It said it has worked over the past 10 years with the International Maritime Organization and the maritime industry to “drive a safety culture that is based on continuous improvement."

For Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli, the memories of that night run the gamut: the horror of seeing the capsized ship, the scramble to coordinate rescue services on shore, the recovery of the first bodies and then the pride that islanders rose to the occasion to tend to the survivors.

► Cruising during COVID-19: Cancellation, refund policies vary by cruise line

Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. But the night of the disaster, a Friday the 13th, remains seared in his memory.

“It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said.

It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. “But then we realized that on that night, in just a few hours, we did something incredible.”

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The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse

By: Becky Little

Updated: August 10, 2023 | Original: June 23, 2021

Many famous naval disasters happen far out at sea, but on January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia wrecked just off the coast of an Italian island in relatively shallow water. The avoidable disaster killed 32 people and seriously injured many others, and left investigators wondering: Why was the luxury cruise ship sailing so close to the shore in the first place?

During the ensuing trial, prosecutors came up with a tabloid-ready explanation : The married ship captain had sailed it so close to the island to impress a much younger Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair.

Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. (Schettino insisted the ship sailed close to shore to salute other mariners and give passengers a good view.) But whatever the reason for getting too close, the Italian courts found the captain, four crew members and one official from the ship’s company, Costa Crociere (part of Carnival Corporation), to be at fault for causing the disaster and preventing a safe evacuation. The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors.

“At any time when you have an incident similar to Concordia, there is never…a single causal factor,” says Brad Schoenwald, a senior marine inspector at the United States Coast Guard. “It is generally a sequence of events, things that line up in a bad way that ultimately create that incident.”

Wrecking Near the Shore

The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger.

Sailing close to shore to give passengers a nice view or salute other sailors is known as a “sail-by,” and it’s unclear how often cruise ships perform these maneuvers. Some consider them to be dangerous deviations from planned routes. In its investigative report on the 2012 disaster, Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports found that the Concordia “was sailing too close to the coastline, in a poorly lit shore area…at an unsafe distance at night time and at high speed (15.5 kts).”

In his trial, Captain Schettino blamed the shipwreck on Helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin, who he claimed reacted incorrectly to his order; and argued that if the helmsman had reacted correctly and quickly, the ship wouldn’t have wrecked. However, an Italian naval admiral testified in court that even though the helmsman was late in executing the captain’s orders, “the crash would’ve happened anyway.” (The helmsman was one of the four crew members convicted in court for contributing to the disaster.)

A Questionable Evacuation

Evidence introduced in Schettino’s trial suggests that the safety of his passengers and crew wasn’t his number one priority as he assessed the damage to the Concordia. The impact and water leakage caused an electrical blackout on the ship, and a recorded phone call with Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini, shows he tried to downplay and cover up his actions by saying the blackout was what actually caused the accident.

“I have made a mess and practically the whole ship is flooding,” Schettino told Ferrarini while the ship was sinking. “What should I say to the media?… To the port authorities I have said that we had…a blackout.” (Ferrarini was later convicted for contributing to the disaster by delaying rescue operations.)

Schettino also didn’t immediately alert the Italian Search and Rescue Authority about the accident. The impact on the Scole Rocks occurred at about 9:45 p.m. local time, and the first person to contact rescue officials about the ship was someone on the shore, according to the investigative report. Search and Rescue contacted the ship a few minutes after 10:00 p.m., but Schettino didn’t tell them what had happened for about 20 more minutes.

A little more than an hour after impact, the crew began to evacuate the ship. But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats. Evacuation was made even more chaotic by the ship listing so far to starboard, making walking inside very difficult and lowering the lifeboats on one side, near to impossible. Making things worse, the crew had dropped the anchor incorrectly, causing the ship to flop over even more dramatically.

Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it!” —a recorded sound bite that turned into a T-shirt slogan in Italy.

Schettino argued that he fell into a lifeboat because of how the ship was listing to one side, but this argument proved unconvincing. In 2015, a court found Schettino guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship before passengers and crew were evacuated and lying to authorities about the disaster. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In addition to Schettino, Ferrarini and Rusli Bin, the other people who received convictions for their role in the disaster were Cabin Service Director Manrico Giampedroni, First Officer Ciro Ambrosio and Third Officer Silvia Coronica.

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Defunct 1950s-era cruise ship takes on water and leaks pollutants in California river delta

This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard District 11 shows The Aurora, a non-operational 294-foot cruise ship moored northwest of Stockton, Wednesday, May 22, 2024, that began to sink and discharge product. A containment boom has been placed around the defunct 1950s-era cruise ship that began sinking and leaking pollution in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, authorities said. (California Department of Fish and Wildlife via AP)

This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows official representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the City of Stockton respond to the sinking vessel Aurora, a non-operational 294-foot cruise ship permanently moored northwest of Stockton on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. A containment boom has been placed around a defunct 1950s-era cruise ship that began sinking and leaking pollution in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, authorities said. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Edward Wargo/U.S. Coast Guard via AP)

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STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — A containment boom has been placed around a defunct 1950s-era cruise ship that began sinking and leaking pollution in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, authorities said.

The 294-foot (90-meter) ship permanently moored in Little Potato Slough northwest of the city of Stockton began to sink in 13 feet (4 meters) of water on Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

A sheen was observed on the water, and containment booms were deployed around the vessel and the city’s water intake pump station, the Coast Guard said. Photographs show the stern low in the water next to the slough’s grassy embankment.

It was not immediately clear what was leaking. The Coast Guard said the vessel recently changed ownership, so details about what pollutants were on board were unknown. The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said the ship was leaking diesel fuel and oil.

A wildlife care organization was notified, but no oiled wildlife had been observed, the Coast Guard said.

The ship, currently known as the MV Aurora, was built in Germany in 1955 and formerly named Wappen von Hamburg. The ship moved around the world and ended up in the delta when a California man bought it in 2008 with dreams of restoring it as a shoreline attraction.

10 years later, Costa Concordia disaster is still vivid for survivors

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Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio . But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.

The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The blackout after the ship’s engine room flooded and its generators failed. The final mad scramble to evacuate the listing liner and then the extraordinary generosity of Giglio islanders who offered shoes, sweatshirts and shelter until the sun rose and passengers were ferried to the mainland.

Italy on Thursday is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration that will end with a candlelit vigil near the moment the ship hit the reef: 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2012. The events will honor the 32 people who died that night, the 4,200 survivors, but also the residents of Giglio, who took in passengers and crew and then lived with the Concordia’s wrecked carcass off their shore for another two years until it was righted and hauled away for scrap.

“For us islanders, when we remember some event, we always refer to whether it was before or after the Concordia,” said Matteo Coppa, who was 23 and fishing on the jetty when the darkened Concordia listed toward shore and then collapsed onto its side in the water.

“I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats.

The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises , regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection.

A dozen passengers on cruise ship test positive for coronavirus

The passengers, whose infections were found through random testing, were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, according to the Port of San Francisco.

Jan. 7, 2022

For Concordia survivor Georgia Ananias, the COVID-19 infections are just the latest evidence that passenger safety still isn’t a top priority for the cruise ship industry. Passengers aboard the Concordia were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat after the captain steered the ship close too shore in a stunt. He then delayed an evacuation order until it was too late, with lifeboats unable to lower because the ship was listing too heavily.

“I always said this will not define me, but you have no choice,” Ananias said in an interview from her home in Los Angeles. “We all suffer from PTSD. We had a lot of guilt that we survived and 32 other people died.”

Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated.

Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of U.S.-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered. But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case.

“I think people need to be aware that when you go on a cruise, that if there is a problem, you will not have the justice that you may be used to in the country in which you are living,” said Ananias, who went onto become a top official in the International Cruise Victims association, an advocacy group that lobbies to improve safety aboard ships and increase transparency and accountability in the industry.

Costa didn’t respond to emails seeking comment on the anniversary.

Cruise Lines International Assn., the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, stressed in a statement to the Associated Press that passenger and crew safety were the industry’s top priority, and that cruising remains one of the safest vacation experiences available.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victims of the Concordia tragedy and their families on this sad anniversary,” CLIA said. It said it has worked over the past 10 years with the International Maritime Organization and the maritime industry to “drive a safety culture that is based on continuous improvement.”

For Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli, the memories of that night run the gamut: the horror of seeing the capsized ship, the scramble to coordinate rescue services on shore, the recovery of the first bodies and then the pride that islanders rose to the occasion to tend to the survivors.

Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. But the night of the disaster, a Friday the 13th, remains seared in his memory.

“It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said.

It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. “But then we realized that on that night, in just a few hours, we did something incredible.”

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How the Wreck of a Cruise Liner Changed an Italian Island

Ten years ago the Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio, killing 32 people and entwining the lives of others forever.

By Gaia Pianigiani

GIGLIO PORTO, Italy — The curvy granite rocks of the Tuscan island of Giglio lay bare in the winter sun, no longer hidden by the ominous, stricken cruise liner that ran aground in the turquoise waters of this marine sanctuary ten years ago.

Few of the 500-odd residents of the fishermen’s village will ever forget the freezing night of Jan. 13, 2012, when the Costa Concordia shipwrecked, killing 32 people and upending life on the island for years.

“Every one of us here has a tragic memory from then,” said Mario Pellegrini, 59, who was deputy mayor in 2012 and was the first civilian to climb onto the cruise ship after it struck the rocks near the lighthouses at the port entrance.

The hospitality of the tight-knit community of islanders kicked in, at first to give basic assistance to the 4,229 passengers and crew members who had to be evacuated from a listing vessel as high as a skyscraper. In no time, Giglio residents hosted thousands of journalists, law enforcement officers and rescue experts who descended on the port. In the months to come, salvage teams set up camp in the picturesque harbor to work on safely removing the ship, an operation that took more than two years to complete.

The people of Giglio felt like a family for those who spent long days at its port, waiting to receive word of their loved ones whose bodies remained trapped on the ship. On Thursday, 10 years to the day of the tragedy, the victims’ families, some passengers and Italian authorities attended a remembrance Mass and threw a crown of flowers onto the waters where the Costa Concordia had rested. At 9:45 p.m., the time when the ship ran aground, a candlelit procession illuminated the port’s quay while church bells rang and ship sirens blared.

What stands out now for many is how the wreck forever changed the lives of some of those whose paths crossed as a result. Friendships were made, business relations took shape and new families were even formed.

“It feels as if, since that tragic night, the lives of all the people involved were forever connected by an invisible thread,” Luana Gervasi, the niece of one of the shipwreck victims, said at the Mass on Thursday, her voice breaking.

Francesco Dietrich, 48, from the eastern city of Ancona, arrived on the island in February 2013 to work with the wreck divers, “a dream job,” he said, adding: “It was like offering someone who plays soccer for the parish team to join the Champions League with all the top teams in the business.”

For his work, Mr. Dietrich had to buy a lot of boat-repair supplies from the only hardware store in town. It was owned by a local family, and Mr. Dietrich now has a 6-year-old son, Pietro, with the family’s daughter.

“It was such a shock for us,” said Bruna Danei, 42, who until 2018 worked as a secretary for the consortium that salvaged the wreck. “The work on the Costa Concordia was a life-changing experience for me in many ways.”

A rendering of the Costa Concordia used by salvage teams to plan its recovery hung on the wall of the living room where her 22-month-old daughter, Arianna, played.

“She wouldn’t be here if Davide hadn’t come to work on the site,” Ms. Danei said, referring to Davide Cedioli, 52, an experienced diver from Turin who came to the island in May 2012 to help right the Costa Concordia — and who is also Arianna’s father.

From a barge, Mr. Cedioli monitored the unprecedented salvage operation that, in less than a day, was able to rotate the 951-foot vessel, partly smashed against the rocks, from the sea bottom to an upright position without further endangering the underwater ecosystem that it damaged when it ran aground.

“We jumped up and down in happiness when the parbuckling was completed,” Mr. Cedioli remembered. “We felt we were bringing some justice to this story. And I loved this small community and living on the island.”

The local council voted to make Jan. 13 a day of remembrance on Giglio, but after this year it will stop the public commemorations and “make it a more intimate moment, without the media,” Mr. Ortelli said during the mass.

“Being here ten years later brings back a lot of emotions,” said Kevin Rebello, 47, whose older brother, Russell, was a waiter on the Costa Concordia.

Russell Rebello’s remains were finally retrieved three years after the shipwreck, from under the furniture in a cabin, once the vessel was upright and being taken apart in Genoa.

“First, I feel close to my brother here,” Kevin Rebello said. “But it is also some sort of family reunion for me — I couldn’t wait to see the Giglio people.”

Mr. Rebello hugged and greeted residents on the streets of the port area, and recalled how the people there had shown affection for him at the time, buying him coffee and simply showing respect for his grief.

“Other victims’ families feel differently, but I am a Catholic and I have forgiven,” Mr. Rebello explained.

The Costa Concordia accident caused national shame when it became clear that the liner’s commander, Francesco Schettino, failed to immediately sound the general alarm and coordinate the evacuation, and instead abandoned the sinking vessel.

“Get back on board!” a Coast Guard officer shouted at Mr. Schettino when he understood that the captain was in a lifeboat watching people scramble to escape, audio recordings of their exchange later revealed. “Go up on the bow of the ship on a rope ladder, and tell me what you can do, how many people are there and what they need. Now!”

The officer has since pursued a successful career in politics, while Mr. Schettino is serving a 16-year sentence in a Roman prison for homicide and for abandoning the ship before the evacuation was completed. Other officials and crew members plea-bargained for lesser sentences.

During the trial, Mr. Schettino admitted that he had committed an “imprudence” when he decided to sail near the island of Giglio at high speed to greet the family of the ship’s headwaiter. The impact with the half-submerged rock near the island produced a gash in the hull more than 70 meters long, or about 76 yards, leading to blackouts on board and water pouring into the lower decks.

Mr. Schettino tried to steer the cruise ship toward the port to make evacuation easier, but the vessel was out of control and began to tip as it neared the harbor, making many lifeboats useless.

“I can’t forget the eyes of children, scared to death, and of their parents,” said Mr. Pellegrini, who had boarded the ship to speak with officials and organize the evacuation. “The metallic sound of the enormous ship tipping over and the gurgling of the sea up the endless corridors of the cruiser.”

Sergio Ortelli, who is still the mayor of Giglio ten years later, was similarly moved. “Nobody can go back and cancel those senseless deaths of innocent people, or the grief of their families,” he said. “The tragedy will always stay with us as a community. It was an apocalypse for us.”

Yet Mr. Ortelli said that the accident also told a different story, that of the skilled rescuers who managed to save thousands of lives, and of the engineers who righted the liner, refloated it and took it to the scrapyard.

While the global attention shifted away from Giglio, residents have stayed in touch with the outside world through the people who temporarily lived there.

For months, the Rev. Lorenzo Pasquotti, who was then a pastor in Giglio, kept receiving packages: dry-cleaned slippers, sweaters and tablecloths that were given to the cold, stranded passengers in his church that night, returned via courier.

One summer, Father Pasquotti ate German cookies with a German couple who were passengers on the ship. They still remembered the hot tea and leftovers from Christmas delicacies that they were given that night.

“So many nationalities — the world was at our door all of a sudden,” he said, remembering that night. “And we naturally opened it.”

Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times.  More about Gaia Pianigiani

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Th ree-Year Cruise, Unraveled:  The Life at Sea cruise was supposed to be the ultimate bucket-list experience : 382 port calls over 1,095 days. Here’s why  those who signed up are seeking fraud charges  instead.

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Italy's Meloni shows her arch-conservative credentials at G7 summit

Since taking office in 2022, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has proved a pragmatic partner on major international issues, assuaging fears she would be a dogmatic conservative unwilling to compromise.

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Evacuation of passengers has ended as cruise ship travels to Norway port

By Eliza Mackintosh and Kendall Trammell , CNN

Viking Sky passengers will begin flying home tonight

All passengers and crew aboard the Viking Sky cruise ship are safe in the port of Molde, in western Norway, and passengers will soon begin flying home, Viking Ocean Cruises said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

With the safe arrival of the vessel in port, our live coverage has ended. For all of the harrowing details from passengers who were stranded at sea, read our story .

"We made it," passengers cheer

The Viking Sky cruise ship has docked at a quay in Molde harbor, western Norway, after a harrowing day stranded at sea.

Passengers onboard the vessel shouted, "We made it," as the ship arrived on Sunday afternoon, Norwegian state broadcaster NRK reported .

Cruise ship expected to dock at 4:30 p.m. local time

The Viking Sky cruise ship is expected to dock at 4:30 p.m. local time in Molde, a port town in western Norway, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre of Southern Norway said on Twitter. Local people have been asked to stay away from the center of town as emergency services prepare for the vessel's arrival.

US Embassy consular team to assist American cruise passengers

The US Embassy in Oslo has sent a consular team to Molde, a coastal city in western Norway, to assist American citizens being evacuated from the Viking Sky cruise ship.

The embassy said it was in contact with Norwegian authorities leading the rescue effort.

"The safety and security of U.S. citizens is of the utmost importance, and we will provide more information as it becomes available," the embassy said in a statement .

Norwegian PM: "It has been a dramatic day"

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg thanked rescue workers and volunteers who had helped respond to what she called a "dramatic day" for passengers aboard the Viking Sky cruise ship.

"It has been a dramatic day for the passengers and rescue personnel on #VikingSky in #Hustadvika. Thank you to the talented rescuers, volunteers and others who have made an invaluable effort in demanding conditions," Soldberg said on Twitter.

Evacuation of passengers has ended as cruise ship travels to port

The evacuation of passengers from a cruise ship off the western coast of Norway has come to an end as the vessel safely makes its way to Molde harbor, Viking Ocean Cruises said in a statement.

Rescue teams airlifted 479 people from the vessel after it was stranded in stormy seas Saturday with 1,300 passengers and crew on board.

The Viking Sky cruise ship, which regained engine power on Sunday morning, is traveling to Molde accompanied by two supply ships and one tug assist vessel. There are 436 guests and 458 crew still remaining on the ship.

Twenty people sustained injuries on the vessel, which was being tossed about by wind and waves, Viking Ocean Cruises said. All are being treated at medical facilities in Norway, or have already been discharged.

"Throughout all of this, our first priority was for the safety and well-being of our passengers and our crew," Viking Ocean Cruises said in a statement, thanking Norwegian emergency services and local residents for their support.

The next sailing, which was scheduled to embark on March 27, has been canceled.

Evacuated passengers treated for bruising, broken bones, cuts

The Norwegian Red Cross, which was treating passengers from the stricken cruise ship at an evacuation center in Hustadvika, on Norway's western coast, said that they were seeing injuries including bruising, broken bones and cuts.

More than 400 people rescued from stranded cruise ship

From CNN's Zahid Mahmood

Rescuers have evacuated 418 people by helicopter from the Viking Sky cruise ship, a day after the vessel was stranded in rough seas off Norway with 1,300 passengers and crew on board.

“There are at least two or three helicopters still rescuing people from the cruise ship but there is only one helicopter in operation at one given time because of the weather,” a spokesperson from Norwegian rescue services (HRS Southern Norway) told CNN.

“They work in rotations because it is not possible to hoist people from two helicopters working at one time.”

Passengers aboard the stricken ship say the vessel is being tossed about by wind and waves as they continue to await rescue .

Three of the ship's four engines are now working, and tug boats are trying to move the ship to shore.

Americans airlifted from cruise ship describe frightening scenes on board

Two American passengers who were airlifted off the Norway cruise ship told CNN affiliate Dagbladet about the frightening scene on board.

"Furniture would slide across the room, slide back and with it came people and glass. It was a very dangerous situation frankly," Jan Terbruegen said.

Speaking at the Scandic Hotel Alexandra, where many of the evacuated passengers are staying, Terbruegen described seeing the ship drifting toward rocks before being evacuated.

"We could see that we were getting blown in toward some rocks. That was the most frightening thing I think. But luckily that wasn't our destiny," Terbruegen said.

Beth Clark, another American passenger, said she was hoisted 100 feet in the air onto a Coast Guard helicopter from the ship. She praised the Norwegian Coast Guard, Viking Sky crew and others for help with the evacuation efforts.

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Efforts Underway to Refloat Cruise Ship Leaking Oil into California River Delta

Andrea Santillan

• June 13, 2024

Efforts are now underway to refloat the nearly 300-foot decommissioned cruise ship Aurora, which began sinking in the California Delta near Stockton in May.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and the Office of Spill Prevention and Recovery have formed a unified command to address the issue.

Over the weekend, crews started installing dewatering pumps on the Aurora, and these efforts will continue throughout the week. Authorities aim to refloat the vessel and remove any remaining fuel to mitigate environmental damage.

The Aurora, which started sinking on May 22 while docked in Little Potato Slough along the San Joaquin River, has been leaking diesel fuel and oil into the Delta. Immediate efforts were made to contain and remove contaminants from the waterway.

The ship, originally christened the Wappen Von Hamburg, was built in 1955 and was West Germany’s first large-scale shipbuilding project following World War II.

It later inspired the 1970s TV show “The Love Boat” and appeared in the 1963 James Bond film “From Russia With Love.”

Sunken Cruise Ship Ignites Government Action

Representative Josh Harder recently visited the sinking Aurora and has since backed the Abandoned and Derelict Vessel Removal Act . This legislation addresses the broader issue of abandoned and deteriorating ships in the Delta, which pose significant safety and environmental hazards.

The proposed Abandoned and Derelict Vessel Removal Act would:

• Establish a process for determining if a vessel is abandoned before removal.
• Allow the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to pay for removing deteriorating abandoned vessels while holding vessel owners responsible for reimbursing the costs.
• It is mandatory that vessels purchased during federal auctions have proper insurance and that their owners can maintain them.
• Give the Army Corps of Engineers the authority to remove abandoned dangerous vessels.
• Establish a central inventory of abandoned and derelict vessels.

“Protecting our water is essential to keeping families, our environment, and wildlife safe,” said Rep. Harder. “We have to get these hazardous ships out of our waters and hold owners accountable.”

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Refloating efforts could start this week for cruise ship Aurora sinking into Delta, officials say

S AN JOAQUIN COUNTY – Crews are now installing dewatering pumps on a decommissioned cruise ship sinking into the Delta near Stockton .

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Spill Prevention & Response division gave an update on the status of the ship Aurora on Tuesday. The old ship had been docked in Potato Slough, in the area of Empire Tract and Eight Mile Road, when it started taking on water in late May.

With the ship leaking diesel fuel and oil into the Delta, a unified response was deployed by several local agencies to contain the situation.

CDFW officials said work started over the weekend to install dewatering pumps on the Aurora.

Further, officials said efforts to refloat and remove any remaining fuel could also start this week.

A safety zone remains in place around the Aurora, officials said.

CDFW noted that they haven't seen any impacts on wildlife in the area so far. Notably, the sinking Aurora is in the same location where a tugboat sank and started leaking fuel in September 2023.

The Aurora has a storied past , with its former cruise ship days serving as an inspiration for the hit 1970s TV show "The Love Boat." It also appeared in the 1963 James Bond film "From Russia With Love."

The Aurora has been moored near Stockton for some time now, but it's unclear exactly how long. 

Cruise Ships Aren’t Ready for Instant Tsunamis

Landslides can cause sudden, powerful tsunamis—and no one really knows how to navigate them.

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine .

In 2015, 76 million cubic meters of rock crashed from the rugged cliffs above a southeastern Alaska fjord and into the water below. The landslide sparked a nearly 200-meter-tall wave that roared down the narrow Taan Fiord and out into Icy Bay. No one witnessed the collapse, but a year later, the geologist Bretwood Higman was in the area taking detailed measurements of the tsunami’s effects. Looking up from his work, Higman saw a massive cruise ship crossing the fjord’s mouth. He was stunned.

“It’d never occurred to me that a cruise ship would go into Icy Bay,” Higman says. An image of tsunami-tossed ships trapped in the rocky passage filled his mind. “There are many ways in which that could work out really badly.” He couldn’t get the picture out of his head.

Landslide-generated tsunamis are low-probability, high-consequence events. But as rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt, the steep slopes of southeastern Alaska’s numerous fjords are becoming unstable . Once buttressed by ice, many exposed cliffs now stand unsupported and at risk of collapse as the glaciers that once held them up rapidly retreat. Heavy rains and thawing permafrost are further increasing the hazards. And with tourists flocking to Alaska’s rugged coast , “there are now these huge concentrations of people that are going right to the areas of highest risk,” Higman says. We’ve increased our vulnerability to disaster, and we’ve increased the probability, he says. This risk is rising in coastal regions around the world that share Alaska’s conditions, such as Greenland, Chile, Norway, and New Zealand.

Unlike tsunamis triggered by earthquakes far offshore, which take time to strike coastal communities, tsunamis triggered by coastal landslides appear suddenly and can cause significantly higher waves, Higman says. That poses a greater threat to people in boats.

Read: The lifesaving potential of underwater earthquake monitors

The growing threat has been gnawing at Amanda Bauer, who’s operated day cruises for 17 years, navigating the tight channels around Alaska’s Prince William Sound, including in the Barry Arm fjord, where a 500-million-cubic-meter slab of unstable terrain is teetering above the retreating Barry Glacier . “I think about it a lot when I’m up there—what would I do?” Bauer says. “Sometimes I’ll be sitting there, surrounded by ice; I couldn’t go more than two knots if I wanted to. That’s different than having open water where I can turn and burn if I see something happening.”

Concerned about how captains should respond to such an extreme threat, Higman dove into the existing scientific literature on how ships can ride out tsunami waves. Focusing only on research related to coastal landslide-triggered tsunamis, his search turned up little, save for some one-off case studies and eyewitness accounts of historical events, such as the time in 1958 when a wave nearly the height of Toronto’s CN Tower capsized two boats in Lituya Bay, Alaska, and killed five people. Scientific efforts to model landslide-generated tsunamis and their effects on vessels are just beginning, which means there are scant data to inform guidelines.

Higman found that the official guidance from the United States’ National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program is similarly lacking. That advice, informed by the effects of offshore tsunamis, essentially boils down to three bullet points: For docked vessels, abandon ship and head for high ground on foot. For vessels in deep water, go out to even deeper water. And for vessels near shore, choose to either beach the boat and run, or flee to deeper water. This one-size-fits-all advice is meant to apply to everything from fishing boats to 150-passenger day cruisers.

Landslide-generated tsunamis can strike before experts are able to detect them and issue warnings, and Higman says the captains he’s spoken with would never choose to beach—and potentially destroy—their vessel and attempt to evacuate with passengers and crew up a rugged Alaska shoreline without even knowing when the wave will arrive or how far it will run up the coast.

Although it’s currently difficult to predict the arrival time or size of a landslide-generated tsunami in advance, Higman says current guidelines could better explain how tsunamis generally work. Tsunami waves differ fundamentally from the wind waves mariners are used to navigating, he says, which can throw off a captain’s intuition. For one thing, tsunami waves pick up speed in deeper water and grow considerably taller in shallow water. The depths of Alaska’s fjords can vary widely, so a captain could think they have plenty of time to outrun a tsunami, only to have the wave catch up and break right on top of them.

Tsunamis confined to fjords also tend to slosh around like water in a bathtub, creating unpredictable currents in excess of 100 kilometers per hour. Those three bullet points of guidance don’t get into these nuances of tsunamis’ interactions with Alaska’s complex shoreline, Higman says. The current guidelines may also underestimate the expertise of vessel operators, he says, who are used to making quick decisions in hazardous conditions.

Elena Suleimani, a tsunami modeler for the Alaska Earthquake Center and co-author of the existing guidelines, admits that they’re imperfect. Although she’s created harbor-specific maps outlining where the water is deep enough for a ship to safely ride out a tsunami, Suleimani doesn’t feel comfortable giving advice to vessel operators: “I have no idea how to operate boats,” she says.

So, on a mission to give captains the best advice possible, Higman is running a workshop with the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council (RCAC) in Valdez, Alaska, this month. The event will bring together tsunami scientists and vessel operators to compile their knowledge and, hopefully, work out some more practicable recommendations.

At this point, Higman can’t say exactly what the proper guidance should be. But although the workshop will focus on improving advice for the captains of small craft, Chad Hults, a geologist with the National Park Service, says operators of larger vessels, such as cruise ships, need to consider the threat of landslide-generated tsunamis as well. Hults says the NPS is keen to begin talks with the cruise lines that frequent Glacier Bay, where a dozen slabs of land seem ready to slide at any moment.

During tourism season, Hults says, “we have 260 cruise ships—two cruise ships a day—going into Glacier Bay. There’s no other place in the park system where we have 4,000 people on a boat and a pretty obvious hazard that could cause some harm.”

Read: The tsunami effect

Similarly, says Alan Sorum, the maritime-operations project manager for the Prince William Sound RCAC, there are no official tsunami hazard guidelines for the oil tankers visiting Valdez, Alaska—the endpoint of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. “If you capsize a big vessel like that,” Sorum says, “it would be a big problem cleaning that up.”

So far, Alaska’s mariners have managed to avoid the worst. A tsunami hasn’t caused an oil spill or killed anyone aboard a boat in Alaska in 60 years. “With all my effort on this, there’s this voice in the back of my head that’s like, ‘Maybe it’s not a big deal; maybe I’m wasting my time,’” Higman says.

But then he thinks about Barry Arm, Lituya Bay, and the cruise ship he saw sailing past the mouth of Taan Fiord. He tallies the dozens of unstable slopes known to be lurking across Alaska, all waiting to collapse into bays and fjords. “And,” he says, “I do think that, at some point, [the situation] is going to explode.”