"The very image of shattered dreams"

The cruise ship was so big, so overwhelming.

And yet, in the end, so little on the vast sea.

Proud and luxurious, she had left Civitavecchia outside Rome, for another cruise around the Mediterranean, Costa Concorida.

300 meters long, with over 4 | 200 people on board.

One of all floating entertainment palaces and once again people had vainly thought that they had built an unsinkable ship.

Now she lay there just outside Giglio, like the very image of shattered dreams.

30 died

I was already awakened on the night of Friday, January 13, when she sank.

As a journalist, you know that it is not good news when the phone rings at night.

To begin with, horrific deaths were predicted, given the size of the ship.

Finally, there were 32, passengers, crew and a rescue worker, who died.

All unnecessarily, in an accident that did not have to happen.

The night Concordia sank was calm and starry, she drove into the rocks for a boastful greeting maneuver and was then abandoned by her captain, when the water leaked in and the disaster was a fact.

Francesco Schettino was christened "Capitano Codardo", Captain Ynkrygg, and became the lone scapegoat.

Perhaps incorrectly, the shipping company Costa Crociere maneuvered more skillfully than he did.

But the fact that he abandoned the ship with crowds of people on board sealed his fate, for there was no understanding, no forgiveness.

Dangerous search operation

I spent many weeks at Giglio, staying at one of all the small summer hotels that opened in a hurry.

The rooms were icy cold, full of journalists from all over the world.

The passengers had to leave the island, the rescue workers who were looking for the missing were left, now without hope.

The restaurants were filled with them and us, we heard over our dinners stories of dangerous dives in the ship, to find the bodies.

Every night we went down to the beach with my TV team, they lit their big candles, lit up the boat.

Wreckage floated ashore: a jacket, a shoe, an elegant handbag. 

One evening at the restaurant, the atmosphere was different;

During the day, five-year-old Dyana Arlotti had been found inside the water-filled part of the boat, still in her father's arms.

The thought of the little body made the big strong men at the table fight the crying, without words, everything was silence.

Only the sea was heard outside in its eternal, unshakable rhythm.

My colleagues went out and turned off the lights for the evening and the Costa Concordia was engulfed by darkness.