Most Tragic Shipwreck of All Time-Skip This Video If You're Scared of Shipwrecks

hi everyone welcome back to my channel today I want to take a look back at one of the most devastating ship accidents in history it's a story that still haunts us today and serves as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong at sea travel by sea has always carried an element of risk accidents human error harsh weather and actions during wartime are among the things that could send a ship to the bottom while some nautical disasters such as the sinking of the Titanic have captured the popular imagination others some of which involved a significantly greater loss of life have remained relatively unknown coming in at number seven we have the SS Eastland a passenger ship built by Jinx shipbuilding company this ship is known as Speed Queen of the Great Lakes and is capable of making a speed of 17 knots approximately 31 kilometers per hour one of the worst Maritime disasters in U.S history occurred on July 24 1915 when the SS Eastland capsized on the Chicago River packed with Western Electric employees on their way to a company picnic the Eastlands sank within yards ashore of the estimated 2 500 people on board at the time more than 800 were killed at number six we have the white ship a passenger ship in the 21st century crossing the English Channel is a matter of routine a high-speed Ferry can make the trip in 90 minutes and a rail journey through the channel tunnel takes only a half hour or so this was not the case in the early 12th century when the crossing was a much more hazardous affair on November 25 11 20 some 300 people were drowned when the white ship sank off the coast of Normandy well that total may seem slight in comparison with other nautical disasters one of those lost was William the etheling the only legitimate son and Herod to King Henry the first of England William's death shattered Henry's succession plans and when Henry died in 1135 a period of Civil War ensued as rival claimants pressed their cases for the throne Chronicles of the day related that in addition to those killed in battle thousands starved to death as a result of the unrest peace would not be fully restored until the ascent of Henry's grandson Henry II in 1154. at number five SS kanja SS kanja was a Chinese passenger steamship that was destroyed in an explosion near the mouth of the foinku river 50 miles north of Shanghai on 3rd of December 1948. her wreck was cleared from the channel in 1956 and her whole refurbished re-entering service she was renamed that SS dong Vang Hong a during the cultural revolution and retired during modernizations in 1983. the K engine had a displacement of 2100 tons and was packed with refugees from the Chinese Civil War the exact death toll is unknown her official capacity was 1186 but 2150 passengers were listed on the Manifest and she was almost certainly carrying many stowaways number four that as has Sultana a commercial sidewheel Steamboat built by John Luther bury bojard on April 27 1865 the deadliest Maritime disaster in U.S history occurred when the steamship SS Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River just north of Memphis Tennessee the American Civil War had ended just weeks before and repatriated Union prisoners of War having endured hellish conditions in Confederate military prisons were eager to return to their homes in the North to facilitate that Journey the federal government paid steamship operators handsomely for each Soldier They Carried that practice led to astonishing levels of corruption as well as neglecting the most basic safety concerns in the case of the Sultana that meant cutting corners on the repair of a leaky boiler and carrying as many as 2 300 people more than six times the vessel's rated capacity when the overtaxed boiler ruptured hundreds were killed in the initial explosion and more were trapped when the overloaded decks collapsed although some 1 800 people were killed the incident was largely overshadowed in the Press by the ongoing coverage of the Lincoln assassination number three the RMS Lusitania Arness was zatania named after the Roman province in Western Europe corresponding to Modern Portugal was a British ocean liner that was launched by the Cunard line in 1906 and that held the blue ray-band appellation for the fastest Atlantic Crossing in 1908. it was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of the Mauritania three months later she was sunk on her 202nd transatlantic Crossing on 7 May 1915 by a German U-Boat 11 miles or 18 kilometers off the southern coast of Ireland killing 1198 passengers and crew coming in at number two MV Donna Paz Maritime traffic has played a vital role in the growth and development of Southeast Asia and ferries transport hundreds of millions of people throughout the region each year accidents have been far too common in occurrence however in the 21st century alone International Regulatory Agencies documented some 17 000 fatalities as a result of ferry sinkings in Southeast Asian Waters the worst such accident indeed the deadliest civilian Maritime disaster in history occurred on December 20 1987. when the passenger Ferry mvdonopause collided with the oil tanker Mt Vector in the tablet stray somewhere in the Philippines roughly 110 miles south of Manila either to reach their destinations prior to the Christmas holiday an estimated 4 300 people more than double the ship's official capacity had crowded onto the Donia pods prior to its departure from taclobin Philippines at the time of the Collision no senior officers were on the bridge of the Donia Paz the vector was traveling without a lookout and it is likely that both ships lacked a functioning radio despite clear visibility and relatively calm seas neither ship gave any indication that it was aware of the other the Collision ignited the 8 800 barrels of oil and gasoline on the vector and both ships were quickly engulfed in The Blaze of the more than 4 400 passengers and crew on both ships just 26 people were rescued from the oil slicked Waters finally coming in at number one we have the MV Wilhelm gusloff a military transport ship built by Blom and Voss measuring 208.5 meter or 684 feet one inches long by 23.59 meter or 77 feet 5 inches wide with a capacity of 25 484 gross registry tons she was launched on 5 May 1937. this ship was originally intended to be named Adolf Hitler but instead was christened after Wilhelm gusloff leader of the Nazi party's Swiss Branch who had been assassinated by a Jewish medical student in 1936. Adolf Hitler decided on the name change after sitting next to Gus lost Widow during his memorial service the MV Wilhelm guslof was the pride of the Nazi craft fertch Freud or strength through Joy program which provided leisure activities for German Workers and served as an important propaganda tool for the third rake the ocean liner carried holiday makers on cruises of the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean and with the outbreak of World War II in 1939 it was converted into a hospital ship it later served as a floating barracks and in the closing months of the war was called upon to evacuate German troops and civilians from East Prussia ahead of advancing Soviet armies by that time in accordance with the laws of war the Wilhelm gustloff had shed the white paint and red crosses that had marked it as a non-combatant and the presence of troops on board and and aircraft guns on Deck made the ship a viable military Target refugees streamed into the port of gotenhaffen now Guinea Poland in the hopes of escape and thousands crowded onto the guslof built to accommodate 1900 people the ship left port on January 30 1945 carrying an estimated 10 000. just after nine o'clock P.M that evening three Torpedoes fired by a Soviet submarine slammed into the port side of the guslof ice had rendered many of the ship's lifeboats inoperable and the crew members best trained to deal with an evacuation had been killed in the torpedo attack or were trapped below deck the gustloff slipped below the frigid Baltic waves just over an hour later although rescue efforts began within minutes of the ship's initial SOS call only 1 200 people could be saved the sinking claimed 9 000 lives making it history's deadliest shipwreck thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed this video about the deadliest shipwrecks in history if you did please give it a like and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more interesting content like this see you in the next video

Channel: Ship Oasis

Views: 45,106

Keywords: history documentary, history, timeline world history, ship, shipwrecked, ancient history documentary, cruiseship, documentary

Id: 6tmOYF8HZ3s

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 06 2023