Photo Gallery The Costa Concordia Disaster
A total of 32 passengers died after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the island of Giglia and steeply listed.
The ship, which had around 4,200 passengers on board, struck a rock during the evening of Jan. 12, 2012, just hours after leaving the Italian port of Civitavecchia and is now lying on its side close to the island of Giglio.
Rescue workers in the nearby port of Porto Santo Stefano described the treacherous conditions aboard the ship. "Our colleagues have told us how slippery the floors and walls are on the ship," one man told SPIEGEL ONLINE. The eight-member rescue team has to rope together, like members of a climbing team, while working in the ship.
Italian Navy scuba divers searched the wreck on Jan. 15, 2012.
Rescue workers board the ship on Sunday. A total of 16 people are still missing on Monday.
Some passengers described the evacuation as chaotic.
The accident happened just hours after the ship had set out on Friday.
The captain is accused of taking the ship too close to the coast. Rocks tore a hole in the hull at least 50 meters long.
There are fear that fuel oil could leak from the ship's tanks, causing an environmental catastrophe.
Investigators have recovered a "black box"-type device from the ship which they hope will help them determine the exact cause of the disaster.
The captain, Francesco Schettino, was arrested on Saturday. He is accused of manslaughter and of abandoning the ship before all the passengers and crew were evacuated.
On Sunday, the company that operated the ship, Costa Crociere, said in a statement that the captain appeared to have made "serious errors of judgment" by taking the ship too close to the coast and not handling the emergency in accordance with the operator's procedures.
Rescue workers evacuating the ship in the early hours of Saturday: At the time of the accident, the Costa Concordia had been carrying more than 4,200 people, with around 1,000 Italian passengers, more than 500 Germans, around 160 French, a few Spanish and close to 1,000 crew members.
Passengers in a rescue boat on Saturday: An evacuation drill had not yet been carried out when the disaster happened.
The Costa Concordia made its maiden voyage in 2006 (archive photo).
This 2007 photo shows the interior of the ship, which had 14 decks, a theater, a cinema, a casino and five restaurants.
This photo shows a rescue boat in Porto Santo Stefano, the closest mainland port to the island of Giglio, on Sunday.
Rescue workers and journalists have turned Porto Santo Stefano into a kind of base camp.
The port is currently much busier than it would usually be in mid-January. The few hotels in the port are fully booked, and the ferry to the island of Giglio is reserved for the emergency services' vehicles.
