The Concordia remains on its side, grounded off Giglio’s port. 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. The cost has swelled to €400 million ($530 million).
While Sunday’s commemoration was focused on the relatives of those who died, Giglio’s residents were also being remembered for having opened their doors to the survivors who came ashore that night, cold, wet and traumatized after a chaotic evacuation.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano sent a message of thanks to the island, praising its people for their ‘‘high sense of civic duty and humanity.’’
‘‘It was something that was too big for us,’’ said Giglio resident Silvana Anichini. ‘‘We are just not used to things like this, and then it turned out to be one of the biggest shipwrecks in the world.’’
Many survivors have stayed in touch with their Giglio hosts, connected in ways they never expected. Claudia Urru, who stayed home in Sardinia on the anniversary, says she speaks monthly with the Giglio family that took in her family and two other families that night. The hosts gave the survivors warm clothes and food.
For Christmas, her Giglio family sent a package of local sweets, and they have discussed having a reunion in Sardinia.
‘‘This is the only thing good that has come of it,’’ Urru said by phone last week.
___
Winfield reported from Rome.
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
