The ship ran aground on Friday the 13th after striking a rock which ripped a huge gash in its hull.
In the hours that followed, it began to tilt irretrievably on to its side in the chilly waters, with thousands of passengers still trapped on board.
Yesterday, as rescue workers risked their lives to search the ship for survivors or casualties, the full horror of the Concordia’s doomed voyage unfolded hour by hour.
Foil wrapping: Stunned passengers and crew try to keep warm after the rescue
Problematic: It is believed that efforts to reach survivors were hampered by blocked doors and staircases
19:00 The lavishly appointed ship, among the largest of its kind in the world, set off from Civitavecchia, near Rome, on the first leg of its round-the-Med cruise. It was due to last seven days, heading north to Savona for the first scheduled stop next morning. Many of the passengers, some of them first-time cruisers, were excited at the prospect and spent their pre-sailing time exploring facilities on board before changing for dinner. They had, after all, paid up to £1,200 a night to be here so they were determined to enjoy themselves.
21:30 As diners settled down to a second-sitting starter of cuttlefish, sautéed mushrooms and salad, elsewhere on the ship dancers were staging a cabaret performance, a magician was launching into his act and passengers were filtering into theatre and entertainment areas.
Holes are seen on the Costa Concordia where it hit the rocks off the coast of the tiny Italian island of Giglio
Some were snuggling up in their cabins to watch a film. Suddenly, there was an enormous crunch, ‘like an earthquake’.
One Italian survivor said: ‘We heard a boom and a groaning noise. All the cutlery fell on the floor.’
In the minutes that followed, some of the more elderly passengers struggled to stay upright as the ship lurched and tilted. When the music and dancing stopped, it was replaced by a soundtrack of creaking metal and breaking glass. The theatre curtains began to hang sideways and cutlery fell from a balcony dining area.
‘One minute we were watching a magic show, the next we were walking over a window,’ a survivor said yesterday. ‘There was a blackout.’ The magician himself, incidentally, had long since done a disappearing act. As he fled, the rest of his act was left on stage. Rosalyn Rincon, 30, from Blackpool, was inside a trick box. Everything on the stage fell on top of her and the other people in the act. ‘There was no signal about what was going on,’ she added. The next time anyone saw her boss he was clambering down a rope ladder to safety.
Incredibly, crew members told passengers there was ‘nothing to worry about … nothing dangerous…’ and that everything would soon be back to normal. Captain Francesco Schettino announced there was ‘a technical problem’. Many on board were told to go back to their cabins – even though the ship was rapidly taking on water and its crew was battling to steer it to safety.
A flotilla of rescue boats surrounds the Costa Concordia as it lists in the shallow waters where it ran aground
One of the dancers who had been performing in the restaurant was instructed by superiors to put on her cocktail dress and reassure passengers it was simply a technical problem. There was no general order to put on lifejackets but some collected them anyway. Stewards even continued to deliver newspapers and magazines to cabins.
At this stage, passengers were still waiting for an emergency and safety drill, which was not scheduled until the following evening.
21:50 Some 20 minutes after the initial bang, it started to list badly. Yet there was still no order to man the lifeboats, even though the ship was tilting so badly that it was becoming difficult to walk on the increasingly sloping decks and passageways. By now thousands of passengers had found lifejackets and moved towards muster stations. Electrical failures wrecked the cabin keycard system, meaning cherished possessions had to be abandoned.
22:10 When the order was finally given to abandon ship, growing fear and uncertainty turned instantly to cold panic.
People fought to get into lifeboats or crawled on their knees along dark, sloping walkways. Screams and weeping punctuated what was clearly a desperate, life-or-death battle to escape. When they eventually struggled from the pitch black into the night air, many were bleeding from hands and knees after crawling over broken glass and debris. Someone asked one of the survivors what was it like. ‘Have you seen the film Titanic?’ replied 31-year-old Valerie Ananias, a teacher from Los Angeles. ‘Well that’s exactly what it was.’
Divers searched the submerged sections of the ship to find whether there were any survivors trapped in airlocks
23:40 The delay in declaring an emergency proved to be a critical hindrance, both to passengers trying to escape and to rescuers eventually called in to save them.
Launching the liferafts became virtually impossible from the port side of the ship as the starboard side continued to list at a steep angle seawards.
Many of the orange and black rafts simply became stuck on the upended side of the ship, unable to slide into the water. Some were left dangling on their steel cables with up to 35 frightened passengers packed inside. ‘We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side,’ said Mike van Dijk, from Pretoria, South Africa. ‘It was a scramble, an absolute scramble.’ In the panic, at least 150 passengers jumped into the sea and swam for shore, fearing they might not get out alive. An elderly man apparently had a fatal heart attack when he hit the freezing water.
Elsewhere, those rafts which were able to get free were swamped by extra people trying to clamber in. One was dive-bombed by someone desperately jumping on to it from the side of the ship. Helicopters plucked at least 50 to safety and more were rescued by a flotilla of small boats, some piloted by volunteers in a D-Day-style operation mounted from the island.
This picture shows the hole ripped in the side of the vessel as it ran aground
On the island’s quay could be heard the heartbreaking sound of a child screaming: ‘Daddy, Daddy.’
And the captain? Apparently he had already abandoned ship. He was reportedly found ‘exhausted’ on shore as his crew and passengers still struggled to escape.
For all of Saturday and yesterday the rescue operation continued. One fireman involved in coordinating it pledged his men would not give up until they were sure everyone was accounted for. That involved divers moving in darkness through passageways blocked with floating debris and carpets, plus rescuers lowered by helicopter to climb in through upturned windows, using thermal image detectors and listening devices to try to find survivors.
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