The ship had 4,229 people from 70 countries on board when the crash happened and many people were sitting down for dinner on the first night of their cruise.
It keeled over in shallow waters within sight of Giglio’s tiny port but the order to abandon the vessel came more than an hour later.
By that time, lifeboats on one side of the ship were virtually unusable because of the tilt and there was panic as people rushed for the remaining ones.
Hundreds were forced to either jump into the water in the darkness and swim ashore or lower themselves along the exposed hull of the ship to waiting boats.
The salvage operation has already eaten up 600 million euros ($798 million) and insurers estimate it could cost more than a billion dollars by the end.
Five hundred people from 26 countries have been involved with the salvage, including 120 divers.
Monday’s operation known as a “parbuckling” in technical jargon employed around 100 people.
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