I’ve listed shipwrecks that caused more than 23,000 deaths in total.
So was the Titanic the most costly in human life?
Some think so.
They are wrong.
Ship Wrecks (over 1000 killed)
April 27, 1865: The Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis. The boilers were faulty which made steamships dangerous. (1450 deaths) Read about the Sultana at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sultana.htm. This site claims that there were over 1700 deaths.
April 14-15, 1912: The Titanic sunk after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic. Deaths were caused by the shortage of lifeboats, the mishandling of lifeboats, waiting too long to drop lifeboats, and the failure of certain other ships to quickly respond. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. If the liner had hit the iceberg head-on rather than a side-splitting glancing blow, it probably would not have sunk. Lower-class passengers suffered the most. (1503 deaths) Read about and see photos of the Titanic at: http://www.titanic-online.com/. You can read the radio transmissions at: [http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cauldron/5807/Titanic/message.html].
May 17, 1915: The Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine off Ireland. The Germans claimed that the ship was carrying armaments. Recent dives indicate that it was. (1198 deaths) Read about the great ship and the political intrigue at: http://www.pbs.org/lostliners/lusitania.html.
February 26, 1916: The French cruiser, La Provence, sank in the Mediterranean. (3100 deaths) Don’t confuse with the battleship much later. Read about the ship at: http://www.greatships.net/provence.html. This site claims that the number of deaths was over 900. You can have fun researching that discrepancy. It was carrying troops, but many were saved. Losses were partly caused by rough seas hindering the launch of lifeboats. A German submarine sank the ship.
December 16, 1917: The Mount Blanc, Imo, a French ammunition ship collided with a Belgium steamer in Halifax Harbor. (1600 deaths) This is one of the most fascinating events in history. Not only was the ship in danger. Read about it at: http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he2_ruins/he2_ruins_countdown_catastrophe.html. Here is an excerpt: “The steel hull burst sky-high, falling in a blizzard of red-hot, twisted projectiles on Dartmouth and Halifax. Some pieces were tiny; others were huge. Part of the anchor hit the ground more than 4 kilometers away on the far side of Northwest Arm. A gun barrel landed in Dartmouth more than 5 kilometers from the harbor.”
November 1948: Chinese army evacuation ship exploded off Southern Manchuria. (6000 deaths) I found nothing of interest on this disaster. It is covered in some book but I couldn’t find a good web site. If you find one, please email me. I learned at http://liners.greatnet.us/shipwreck_timeline.htm that the ship was carrying Chinese Nationalist Soldiers from Manchuria.
December 3, 1948: Chinese refugee ship exploded south of Shanghai. (1100+ deaths) I found no web site on this either. At http://liners.greatnet.us/shipwreck_timeline.htm I learned that these were refugees fleeing Communist China.
September 26, 1954: The Toya Maru, a Japanese ferry sank in the Tsugaru Strait. (1172) Some U.S. military personal died in this disaster.
December 20, 1987: The Dona Paz, a Philippine ferry sank after colliding with an oil tanker in Tablas Strait. (3000+ deaths) Read more at http://www.hazardcards.com/card.php?id=14.
Feb. 17, 1993: The Neptune: triple-deck ferry capsized off southern peninsula of Haiti during a squall. Over 1,000 passengers believed drowned. About 300 survived the sinking.
September 26, 2002: Senegalese state-run ferry, the Joola, sank off the coast of Gambia. (1800 deaths). Read about the aftermath at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2290490.stm.
The End
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