On this day on September 17, 2013: The Costa Concordia is brought upright

For nine months the Costa Concordia lay on its side off the coast of Italy.

The cruise ship had hit a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea, tearing open a 50m long hole on the side of its hull.

It took six hours to evacuate 4200 passengers and crew from the massive vessel, but 32 people aboard died.

But on September 17, 2013, the vessel was finally brought back into a vertical position in a parbuckling procedure.

The delay was caused by the need to drain the enormous vessel of its remaining fuel.

It was refloated ten months later, and towed at walking pace to the port of Genoa.

Then it took three more years to dismantle the massive vessel in a drydock.

In all, it cost $2.4 billion to salvage and dismantle the Costa Concordia.

The ship's captain Francesco Schettino would be convicted of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the passengers.

Schettino insisted he died not abandon the ship, explaining that he had fallen overboard into a lifeboat. He refused to reboard the vessel despite the furious insistence of the Italian Coast Guard at the time.

He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.