The worst peacetime shipping disasters
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| Photo By STRINGER/ITALY/Reuters |
Costa Concordia hit rocks and was badly listed near the Italian island of Giglio, last January 13, 2012. Nearly 40 people are reported as missing.
Here are a compilation of the worst peacetime shipping disasters after Titanic sank century ago:
April 15, 1912 - CANADA - The White Star passenger liner Titanic sank on her maiden voyage off Newfoundland after hitting an iceberg. Of the 2,200 passengers and crew aboard the ship, dubbed before its departure as "unsinkable" 1,523 died.
May 29, 1914 - CANADA - At least 1,012 people were killed when The Empress of Ireland passenger liner collided with a Norwegian freighter on the St Lawrence River in Canada. It was carrying 1,057 passengers and 420 crew.
October 25, 1927 - ATLANTIC - The luxury Italian liner Principessa Mafalda was headed for Rio de Janeiro from Cape Verde islands with 288 crew and 971 passengers when it caught fire and sank off the Brazilian coast. More than 300 people, many of whom were Italian immigrants, died.
January 31, 1953 - The Princess Victoria sank in the North Channel (between Scotland and Northern Ireland), during a severe storm. About 133 people were killed
October 29, 1955 - RUSSIA - The Novorossiysk, formerly the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare, was moored near the shore at Sevastopol. She was the flagship of the Black Sea squadron of the Soviet Navy. The ship exploded and then capsized and sank with the loss of 609 crew.
July 25, 1956 - UNITED STATES - Swedish American Line's, Stockholm and the Italian Line's Andrea Doria collided 45 miles off the coast of Nantucket Island in the United States.
- Both ships were badly damaged but luckily the death toll was low with the Stockholm losing five crew and the Andrea Doria losing 45 passengers out of the 1,134 that were on board. The Andrea Doria sank.
April 22, 1980 - PHILIPPINES - The inter-island ferry Don Juan while en route from Manila to Bacolod, sank in the Tablas Strait off Mindoro Island after it was in collision with the barge Tacloban City. At least 1,000 died.
Aug 31, 1986 - SOVIET UNION - Passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov collided with cargo ship Pyotr Vasev off the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. 423 passengers and crew died.
March 6, 1987 - BRITAIN - The car ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized and sank shortly after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The vessel had 463 passengers and crew on board when it left the port with its bow doors still open. 193 people were killed.
Dec 20, 1987 - PHILIPPINES - In the worst peacetime sea tragedy, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with the tanker Vector in the Sibuyan Sea. 4,375 people died on the ferry and 11 of the Vector's 13-man crew were killed.
April 11, 1991 - ITALY - 140 people on board the Italian ferry the Moby Prince died with only one crew member surviving when it rammed an anchored oil tanker, the Agip Abruzzo.
Dec 15, 1991 - EGYPT - 464 people were killed when the Salem Express hit coral outside the port of Safaga, 600 km (375 miles) southeast of Cairo in the Red Sea
Sept 28, 1994 - ESTONIA/FINLAND - 852 people drowned when the Estonia carrying 989 people sank off the Finnish island of Utoe, en route from Tallinn to Stockholm. It was Europe's worst peacetime maritime disaster.
December 2, 1994 - ITALY - The luxury liner Achille Lauro, ill-starred symbol of a once glorious Italian passenger fleet, sank about 250 km (150 miles) off Somalia, more than two days after fire turned her into a floating inferno. The ship was made famous by a dramatic hijack at sea in 1985, which caused outrage when four Palestinian hijackers killed an elderly Jewish-American passenger, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, and dumped his body overboard.
February 3, 2006 - EGYPT - The ferry, Al-Salam Bocaccio 98, on a journey between Duba in Saudi Arabia and Safaga in Egypt sank 56 miles from Safaga after a fire broke out on the car deck. Of the 1,414 people aboard, only 388 people survived.
June 21, 2008 - PHILIPPINES - the Philippine passenger and cargo vessel, Princess of the Stars, sank off Romblon province in central Philippines after being hit by a typhoon. It is thought only 52, of the 825, onboard survived.
January 13, 2012 - ITALY - The Costa Concordia, a six-year old 114,500 tonne luxury cruise liner, hit rocks and keeled over. At least three people were killed and some 38 people were unaccounted for of the 4,229 passengers and crew on board. The captain has been arrested.
Source: Yahoo! News
(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
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