1833 May 11, Lady of the Lake: bound from England to Quebec, struck iceberg;
215 perished.
1853 Sept.
29, Annie Jane: emigrant vessel off coast of Scotland; 348
died.
1865 April
27, Sultana: boiler explosion on Mississippi River steamboat, near Memphis;
1,547 killed. Most of the dead were Union POWs finally heading home at the end of the Civil War.
1898 Feb.
15, Maine: U.S. battleship destroyed in Havana harbor by an explosion that
killed 260 men. The incident led to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898.
1898 Nov.
26, City of Portland: 157 died nr. Cape Cod.
1904 June
15, General Slocum: excursion steamer burned in East River, N.Y.; 1,021
perished.
1912 March
5, Principe de Asturias: Spanish steamer struck rock off Sebastien Point;
500 drowned.
1912 April
15, Titanic: supposedly unsinkable British ocean liner went down on maiden voyage after colliding with an iceberg. More than
1,500 people died.
1914 May
29, Empress of Ireland: sank after collision in St. Lawrence River;
1,024 perished.
1915 May
17, Lusitania: British luxury liner was sunk off Irish coast by a German submarine;
1195 died.
1915 July
24, Eastland: Great Lakes excursion steamer overturned in Chicago River;
812 died.
1916 Nov.
21, Britannic: sister ship of the Titanic sank in the Aegean Sea after an explosion. The vessel, which had been converted to a hospital ship during World War I, probably collided with an underwater mine. Of the more than 1,100 people aboard, only
30 died.
1928 Nov.
12, Vestris: British steamer sank in gale off Va.; 110
died.
1934 Sept.
8, Morro Castle: 134 killed in fire off Asbury Park, N.J.
1939 May
23, Squalus: submarine with 59 men sank off Hampton Beach, N.H.; 33
saved.
1939 June
1, Thetis: submarine sank in Liverpool Bay, England; 99
perished.
1945 Jan.
30, Wilhelm Gustloff: cruise ship carrying German refugees and soldiers sunk by Soviet submarine in Baltic. It is thought that as many as 10,000 people were aboard, of which only about
900 survived.
1949 Sept.
17, Noronic: Canadian Great Lakes cruise ship burned at Toronto dock; about
130 died.
1952 April
26, Hobson: minesweeper collided with aircraft carrier Wasp and sank during night maneuvers in mid-Atlantic;
176 persons lost.
1953 Jan.
9, Chang Tyong-Ho: South Korean ferry foundered off Pusan; 249 reported
dead.
1953 Jan.
31, Princess Victoria: British ferry sank in Irish Sea; 133
lost.
1954 Sept.
26, Toya Maru: more than 1,000 killed when commercial ferry sank in Tsugaru Strait, Japan.
1956 July
25, Andrea Doria: Italian liner collided with Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket Island, Mass., and sank next day. At least
52 died or were unaccounted for.
1962 April
8, Dara: British liner exploded and sank in Persian Gulf; 236
dead. Caused by time bomb.
1963 April
10, Thresher: atomic-powered U.S. submarine sank in North Atlantic;
129 dead.
1963 May
4: United Arab Republic ferry capsized and sank in upper Nile; over
200 died.
1966 Dec.
12, Heraklion: Greek passenger ferry foundered in heavy seas near Crete;
241 dead.
1968 Jan.
25, Dakar: Israeli submarine sank in eastern Mediterranean, probably after collision with large ship;
69 dead.
1968 Late
May, Scorpion: U.S. nuclear submarine sank in Atlantic 400 mi southwest of Azores;
99 dead.
1970 Dec.
15: ferry in Korean Strait capsized; 261
lost.
1975 Nov.
10, Edmund Fitzgerald: cargo vessel carrying 26,000 long tons of taconite (iron ore) pellets sank in eastern Lake Superior;
all 29 crew lost.
1976 Oct.
20, George Prince: Mississippi River ferry rammed by Norwegian tanker Frosta nr. Luling, La.;
77 dead.
1983 May
25, 10th of Ramadan: Nile steamer caught fire and sank in Lake Nasser, near Aswan, Egypt;
272 dead and 75
missing.
1987 March
9: British ferry capsized after leaving Belgian port of Zeebrugge with 500 aboard;
134 drowned. Water rushing through open bow is believed to be probable cause.
1987 Dec.
20: over 4,000 killed when passenger ferry Dona Paz collided with oil tanker Victor off Mindoro Is., 110 mi south of Manila.
1990 April
7, Scandinavian Star: suspected arson fire aboard Danish-owned North Sea ferry
killed at least 110 passengers in Skagerrak Strait off Norway.
1990 April
7: double-decker ferry sank in Gyaing River in Myanmar (Burma) during a storm and
215 persons were believed drowned.
1991 Dec. 14: ferry carrying 569 passengers sank in Red Sea off coast of Safaga, Egypt, after hitting a coral reef. Over
460 people believed drowned.
1993 Feb.
17, Neptune: triple-deck ferry capsized off southern peninsula of Haiti during a squall. Over
1,000 passengers believed drowned. About 300 survived the sinking.
1994 Sept.
28, Estonia: passenger ferry capsized off coast of southwest Finland and sank in a stormy Baltic Sea.
Only about 140 of the estimated 1,040 passengers aboard survived.
1996 Jan.
21, Gurita: overloaded ferry sank off the coast of northern Sumatra,
killing 340.
1999
Feb., Harta Rimba: ship sank in the South China Sea, killing about 325 people. The ship had not been licensed for passenger use.
1999 Nov.
24, Dashun: ferry carrying more than 300 passengers sank after catching fire. More than
150 confirmed dead, with another 140
missing.
2000 June
29, Cahaya Bahari: ferry carrying mostly Christian refugees from the island of Halmahera sank approximately 40 mi off the coast of Sulawesi.
None of the 492 persons on board survived.
2000 Aug.
12, Kursk: Russian nuclear submarine sank to bottom of Barents Sea following an explosion;
118 dead.
2001 Feb.
9, Ehime Maru: U.S. submarine Greeneville collided with Japanese fishing boat near Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Twenty-six people aboard the Ehime Maru were rescued; nine others, including four students, were presumed dead. |
