Top 10 Cruise Ship Disasters
Hello!
Welcome back to Most Amazing Top 10!
I am Rebecca Felgate and I am fascinated by boats.
I love the water and I consider myself a nautical kind of gal….but oceans are deep and mysterious,
and sometimes scary places to be.
Join me as we talk about the Top 10 Cruise Ship Disasters!
Starting off number 10 with an old favourite to get it out the way, the most famous cruise
ship disaster of all time we have the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
Most of us know the story – The Titanic was a huge deal, it the biggest cruise ship
ever, it was dubbed unsinkable by some pompus idiots who wanted headlines more than he wanted
a strong grasp of science and mathematics….
Many of us will know that the Titanic was 4 days into its maiden voyage before it struck
an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
Again, most of us already know there were not enough lifeboats on board to save everyone
from death.
In the end, just 710 people survived, and 1514 died in icy waters.
What some people don’t know is that the Titanic was going very fast when it hit the
iceberg as bosses wanted the ship to arrive early in New York to gain extra press.
There was a huge class divide in how many people were saved.
Just one child died in first class, none died in second class, in in third class 52 of the
79 children perished.
Again, most first and second class women were saved but most third class women died.
The Titanic is so famous as the circumstances surrounding the tragedy were so avoidable
and the vessel sank slowly and dramatically.
Some more drama at number 9, no deaths but there were some pirates… we have the 2005
Seabourn Spirit Siege.
The Seabourn Spirit is a luxury cruise liner and was sailing off the east African Coast
when it was set upon by Somalian Pirates.
The pirates presumably wanted to loot the boat, and were firing guns and throwing granades
at the huge vessel.
Luckily, the ship’s captain acted quickly, steering the boat to make waves to slow the
pirates down.
While one passenger was injured as people hid in the boats restaurant, the captain was
able to steer the ship to safety.
This story is dramatic, but it is nothing compared to a lot of the other disasters on
this list.
8 we have the Explorer of the Sea Sickness of 2014.
Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Sea cruise ship was met with a plague of illness when
it sailed from New Jersey in January 2014.
The boat had just over 3000 passengers on board and 1100 crew members.
Of this number, 595 passengers got sick, as did 50 grew members, with a suspected outbreak
of the Noro Virus.
It is thought the number of sick was actually much higher, but people did not admit it as
they didn’t want to be confined to their cabins.
Apparently the boat smelled overwhelmingly of vomit and bleach throughout the latter
part of the trip.
The boat returned two days early to let sick passengers disembark and to deep cleanse the
ship.
Urgh.
Again, this sounds horrible, but at least everybody made it home alive…for the rest
of the numbers on this list, the same cannot be said.
7 - we have the Louis Majesty Cruise Ship incident of 2010.
The Louis Majesty was on a Mediterranean cruise with 1,350 passengers on board when giant
26 foot waves battered the vessel in March 2010.
Dramatic footage of the moment the waves hit has been captured on video and uploaded to
youtube.
The waves smashed windows in the ship, flooding some areas…which must have been terrifying.
Sadly two passengers were killed, one German man and one Italian man.
A further six passengers were injured.
A modern tragic cruise ship disaster up next, we have the capsizing of the Costa Concordia
in2012…coming in to number 6.
The Costa Concordia was at the beginning of a Mediterranean cruise with over 3000 passengers
on board when ship captains deviated from their usual route to sail closer to the island
of Isola del Giglio.
The ship struck rocks and began to list, falling onto her side an hour after impact.
The crew on board reportedly told passengers to return to their cabins.
33 people died as a result of the accident, with one person still missing 5 years on.
A further 64 people were injured.
Scandal comes as the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino abandoned ship and was found guilty
of manslaughter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/10985345/Costa-Concordia-in-pictures-Inside-the-cruise-liner-after-two-years-underwater.html?frame=2983894
5 - SS Princess Sophia 1918 The Princess Sophia was said to be a beautiful
ship, especially in First class.
She had maple panelled lounges, a piano room and a dinning room.
The Canadian coastal passenger liner made her last voyage from Alaska to British Columbia.
The ship encountered heavy and blinding snow, running her slightly off course and grounding
her on a reef.
As the boat was stuck on a reef, the captains decided not to evacuate the ship as they thought
a rescue vessel would come for them soon.
As the weather worsened, the ship must have dislodged from the reef and sunk, when the
rescue ship arrived there was no sign of the Princess Sophia.
A wreck was found a day later – and all 343 aboard died.
The only survivor was a small dog.
4 - SS Camorta 1902.
The Camorta was a British passenger steamship that was on route from India to Burma across
the bay of Bengal.
On board were merchants, and wealthy Indian travellers and crew members.
Sadly as the ship crossed the bay, she was caught in a Cyclone.
It is not known exactly how she sank as sadly all 655 passengers and 82 crew members died.
The wreck was found several weeks after she went missing, with her masts poking out of
a reasonably shallow bit of water.
3 - SS.
Eastland 1915 Just three years after the Titanic Disaster,
another 845 people were killed as a ship docked in the Chicago River rolled over.
On board the great lakes passenger steam liner were over 2500 people who were attending the
Western Electric employee picnic.
It is thought the boat was overloaded, which may have been why she rolled although an exact
reason was never given for the incredible disaster that took place on that fateful day
in July 1915.
2 - MS Estonia - 1994 The MS Estonia was a cruise ferry that sank
in the mid nineties, making in the worst peacetime shipwreck disaster in European Waters.
In the early hours of the 28th September 1994, the Estonia was crossing the Baltic Sea on
route to Stockholm with 803 passengers and 186 crew on board.
The ship was fully loaded and slightly listing as the cargo was said to be poorly distributed.
When the ship hit bad weather, she listed further and took in water, and then rolled
90 degrees.
The ship sank in about 45 minutes and the positioning of the boat made it very difficult
for passengers to escape.
The power on the boat kept cutting out which meant it was hard to send mayday messages.
Of the 989 people aboard, 852 died.
Grim.
Worse still, the Swedish Government did not try to bring up the bodies trapped in the
ship.
Finally at number one, a tragedy that echoed the Titanic very soon after it sank
1 - RMS Empress of Ireland – 1914 This was a truly horrifying echo of the Titanic
just two years after the great cruise liner sunk in the North Atlantic.
The RMS Empress of Ireland was also a luxury ocean liner and like the Titanic, most of
her passengers died.
On a foggy evening, the ship collided with another ship, the Norwegian SS Storstad in
the Saint Lawrence River on the 29th May and sunk very quickly in just 15 minutes.
Because of the quick sinking time and the late time of evening the collision happened,
most people were trapped in their cabins below deck.
Just 465 people were saved.
1012 people sadly perished.
SO that was the top 10 cruise ship disasters……
I know it is sad but the history of it all is fascinating.