Marine disaster or catastrophe as the name itself suggests is a situation when a ship is lost in the sea as a result there is a complete loss of the ship and the also a huge loss of life. We will now discuss about the greatest marine disaster that man has ever seen and what we have learnt from these disasters. We can either differentiate between the disasters on the basis of death or money lost. The one shipwreck that we all know about is the Titanic in 1912. The loss was more in terms of life than of cost.

Almost fifteen hundred lives were lost in this fatal accident. When there is a military ship wreck the loss of life is always much higher. For example in the case of Wilhelm gustloff this was a soviet navy submarine that was lost in the sea. It killed almost nine thousand five hundred people at the same time. This happened in the year 1945 during the Second World War. There was a ship named Don Paz that too killed about four thousand people but this was during peace time and not a war unlike the first one discussed.

It is not necessary that all greatest marine disaster have happened only at the time of war. There can be a host of other reasons like natural calamity, failure of machinery and also human errors that have led to maritime disasters in the past. Quite a few of these have also happened near the famous Bermuda triangle. When in sea even the biggest of ships are at the mercy of the water. This is exactly why such horrific marine disasters happen.

Let us get into some more details about the greatest marine disaster. If we have to list these then we will definitely start with the Dona Paz. It sunk in the year 1987. It was passenger ferry and belonged to Philippines. It collided with an oil tanker by error. The oil tanker was called Vector. Due to oil there was explosion and fire that killed around four thousand lives. In term of lives lost this was the worst accident we can recollect ever.

The second greatest marine disaster that features in this list is SS Kiangya. This belonged to China. It was 1948 the steamed passenger ship was on its routine path. When suddenly there was a deadly explosion and the whole ship sank in Huangpu River in the south of Shanghai. It is said that the explosion was a result of a mine that was left by the Japanese army during world war. The exact figure of dead could not be calculated but it is belived that about four thousand people died. A thousand of survivors were picked up by other boats.

The year was 1917, the place Canada. A French cargo ship named Mont Blanc that was loaded with wartime weapons collided with a ship from Norway named IMO. In the collision two thousand people died. However, the number of injured were about nine thousand. The injuries mostly happened by the pieces of glass that were scattered all around. It is considered to be one of the worst accidental explosions in the history of the greatest marine disaster. This is exactly why it finds a mention here.

The next in the list of greatest marine disaster is the Le Joola. It was an overloaded ferry boat. It was from Senegal. The ship drowned in the rough sea as it was too crowded. The number of dead is expected to be about eighteen hundred. The accident happened in the year 2002. This is a very good example of man’s carelessness and nature’s fury.

When we discuss greatest marine disaster of all time we have to mention about the Sultana. It was in 1865 the ship sank after explosion. It was a steam boat that was carrying passengers. Almost eighteen hundred innocent people died. The ship was belonging to the United States of America. The boilers of the ship exploded and all the people died. Most of them were soldiers who were injured or were imprisoned at the time of civil war. The ship was also overloaded that is considered to be one of the reasons for the disaster.

Moving on with the list of the greatest marine disaster we are about to discuss about Tek Sing of China. It struck a reef near Indonesia and sank killing around sixteen hundred people on board. In the year 1707 there was another maritime disaster that is considered to be one of the worst. It was 22nd October. It was a fleet of the Royal navy of the Great Britain. It was crossing the dangerous reefs of the scilly. There were about four ships all the four sank and it is belived that they lost the way as the navigator did not function properly. It killed about two thousand soldiers. It is one of the saddest incidents in marine history for sure.

The Greatest marine disaster is not yet over the next incident that comes in mind is the Toya Maru of Japan. It was also a passenger ferry. In the year 1954 it sank when it was hit by the typhoon Marie. It is said that about thousand people died in this incident. This is because quite a few people went on board without tickets and many were lucky as they did last moment cancellations. Another example of how devastating nature’s fury can be.

The Empress of Ireland belonged to Canada. It sunk in the year 1914. It collided with another ship named Storstad and killed about one thousand people. It was in Egypt the year was 2006. A passenger ferry ship named Al Salam Boccaccio 98. When it sank it killed around one thousand people. Only three hundred and eighty eight lives could be saved.

These are no doubt some of the most devastating and fatal accidents that we could list in our list of greatest marine disaster. There are many more that we could not list. The list is based on number of deaths that happened. These are the top few rather. I hope this will help you understand the worst disasters in sea better. Most of them were learning lessons and we have learnt a lot about safety in sea from these. Lot of changes were brought in the safety manuals post these disasters. These changes were done to ensure that such disasters don’t happen again. Quite a few of the disasters are recent. This proves that we have no stand in front of the nature’s fury. No matter how much we sophisticate the technology there are something that we cannot control.

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