Italian Ship Cruise Accident: 32 people died on the evening of January 13,2012 when The Costa Concordia, a luxury liner, sank into the sea in Italy's Giglio island

On the evening of January 13, 2012, Umberto Trotti heard the terrified cries of his wife and baby in the lifeboat below, and threw himself off the capsizing Italian cruise ship.

The Costa Concordia, a vast, luxury liner, had run aground off Italy's Giglio island and was toppling over into freezing waters, in a disaster that would leave 32 people dead.

There had been no room for Trotti in the lifeboat that took his wife Fjorda and two young children, but on hearing their panic as the vessel was lowered into the water, he leaped to join them.

"It was instinct, my family needed me. I jumped, three or four metres (10 or 13 feet). I landed on a big German, poor man," Trotti told AFP.

The family were unsure whether to go back to Giglio for a ceremony Thursday and a candle-lit procession marking 10 years since the disaster.

Ship horns will sound and church bells ring at 9:45pm (20:45 GMT) to mark the moment the liner, owned by Costa Crociere, subsidiary of US based giant Carnival, struck an outcrop, after captain Francesco Schettino ordered a sail-by "salute" to the Tuscan island.

Trotti, 44, and Fjorda, 33, had been on their honeymoon.

"It was supposed to be the best experience of our lives," he said.

"Those not onboard will never understand. I was so in shock, I was walking like a zombie."

The liner, carrying 4,229 people from 70 countries, ran aground while many passengers were at dinner.

Schettino, later sentenced to 16 years for the shipwreck, delayed sounding the alarm.

Evacuation began over an hour after the collision, by which point the lifeboats on one side were unusable.

"We were saved by a chef," Trotti says. They had been in the blue and gold Ristorante Milano when the ship hit land.

Paolo Maspero, still in his chef's hat, "took my six-month old son in his arms. The water was coming in".