In total, according to the calculations of historians and oceanographers, the remains of at least a million ships of all eras rest on the seabed. Most of the "drowned" found their end under the abyss of the upper waters, far from the sun's rays and the storms raging from above. However, rare lucky ones managed to sink in shallow water. They lie like a dead spot in the turquoise glow of the depth, reminding us of the omnipotence of the ocean.
To access such objects, scuba gear and other special equipment are not needed. It is enough just to sail above them to see the silhouettes of sunken ships.
The ghostly remains of the yacht Mar Sem Fin("Endless Sea")
A Brazilian research yacht iced over and sunk at a depth of about 10 meters in Maxwell Bay in Antarctica.
The last parade of the cruiser "Prinz Eugen"
A participant in the Bikini nuclear tests, he found his last refuge on the reefs of Kwajalein Atoll, 10,000 miles from his historical homeland.
After the surrender of Germany, the cruiser was captured by the Americans, who used the Eugen as a target. The ship withstood the nuclear fire and was towed to nearby Kwajalein to await another round of explosions. For the next six months, the cruiser slowly, compartment by compartment, filled with water and listed on the LB. At the last moment, the Yankees tried to save him, but before reaching the shore, the Eugen capsized and sank in shallow water. Where it remains to this day, with its propellers shamelessly raised above the water.
The picturesque remains of the schooner Sweepstakes
An old Canadian schooner that sank on the lake. Ontario in 1885. The remains of Sweepstakes rest under six meters of clear water. This made it possible to turn the schooner into a popular tourist attraction, making Sweepstakes part of the national natural park. Currently, work is underway at the bottom of the lake to restore and preserve the remains of a 19th-century schooner.
Lies really well!
The wreck of the brig "James McBride", sunk on the lake. Michigan in 1857.
A pile of debris at the site of the sinking of the Rising Sun. The ship was lost in a storm in 1917.
An unknown sunken ship, whose photo was found on the Internet.
The British armored steamer Vixen, scuttled as a barrage in Bermuda.
Tears of the battleship Arizona
Battleship station, Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian Islands. Further comments are probably unnecessary.
Arizona is one of two American battleships that died that day (the remaining six were returned to service). It was hit by four 800-kg bombs made from 356-mm armor-piercing shells. The first three did not cause harm to the battleship, but the last one led to the detonation of the gunpowder magazines of the main main gun turrets. The ship, destroyed by the explosion, sank to the bottom of the harbor, forever locking 1,177 people in its compartments.
A memorial was erected at the site of the death of the battleship. The deck of the battleship lies literally a few meters below it. Engine oil slowly seeping to the surface spreads over the water in a lilac-scarlet spot, supposedly depicting “battleship tears” for its dead crew.
Supercarrier Utah
Near the "Arizona", at the bottom of the Pearl Bay, another remarkable object rests. Sunken target ship (decommissioned battleship) "Utah". The smooth wooden flooring in place of the dismantled main battery towers was mistaken by Japanese pilots for the deck of an aircraft carrier. The samurai took out all their anger on the target instead of flying to bomb the oil base, docks and other strategic objects of Pearl Harbor.
The last feat of "Ochakov"
The large anti-submarine ship "Ochakov" was used as a barrier at the exit from the lake. Donuzlav, during the “Crimean events” the year before last. Being in an incapacitated state, the old BOD found the strength to complete the last task in the interests of the Fatherland.
Unlike other ships on this list, the BOD hull did not completely disappear under water. But the epic nature of such an event is impressive!
Some ships managed to die without water. In the photo - an abandoned ship at the bottom of the dried-up Aral Sea.
Mankind learned to build ships at the same time when the first states arose - in the 3rd millennium BC. The history of shipbuilding is about 4000 years old, and sunken ships find the last berth at the bottom of the seas and oceans for the same number of years. Historians claim that from the 10th century BC. and until the middle of the twentieth century AD. at least 3 million ships sank.
Before the invention of the steam engine, more than half of the ships crashed and sank within 1-2 years after the start of operation. Rowing and sailing ships perished both in naval battles and in storms, and more often disasters occurred due to strong winds and storms. In the 19th century, when sailboats were replaced by steamboats in the fleets of maritime powers, and people learned to predict the weather, the number of shipwrecks decreased.
Two world wars in the twentieth century added to the list of thousands of sunken ships - combat and auxiliary ships, cargo and cargo-passenger liners and submarines. Sunken ships in isolated cases were raised to the surface of the water and towed to the port.
Most of the dead ships remained forever under the water column. For 4 thousand years, cemeteries of sunken ships have formed in the world's oceans - sections of the bottom where hundreds of ships lie wrecked in different centuries.
Ancient Roman galleys, English frigates, pirate galleons, American ships and Soviet warships coexist in underwater cemeteries. There are countless similar places on shipping routes; explorers of the deep sea regularly find new sunken ships. We will talk about the 7 largest shipwreck cemeteries known today.
1. Caribbean Sea, Greater Antilles
Shipping routes through the Caribbean Sea were laid after the discovery of America, because through it lies the shortest route from the Pacific Ocean to the ports of the Atlantic. Trade, military and passenger ships regularly pass by the Greater Antilles for 500 years.
But the weather in the Caribbean is changeable, there are strong storms 8-12 times a year that can blow large and medium sailing ships to the bottom. And pirates in the 16th-19th centuries considered this sea an excellent place to profit from gold and goods from merchant ships.
During the era of the “gold rush”, a route ran through the Caribbean Sea, along which jewelry from Novaya Zemlya was delivered to Spain and Portugal. And it is natural that hundreds of frigates and galleons carrying gold were attacked by pirates.
The exact number of ships lying at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea has not been established. Researchers claim that from 1000 to 3000 ships are sunk there, at least 450 of which are Spanish sailing ships that died between 1500 and 1800.
To date, a maximum of 20% of ships sunk in the Caribbean have been explored. And the most famous of them are:
- The Spanish sailing ship San Antonio, carrying gold and jewelry, was lost during a storm in the autumn of 1621.
- The Spanish galleon "Nuestra Señora de la Concepción", which sank in 1641 with tons of gold and jewelry on board.
- English frigate "Winchester" with 60 heavy guns (guns), wrecked in 1695.
- 10 galleons of the Spanish "Silver Fleet", sunk in 1715, during a strong hurricane.
- The Spanish galleon "Rui", which died during a storm in 1733.
According to treasure hunters, the Caribbean Sea is not only a large cemetery of sunken ships, but also a treasury with untold riches. Hundreds of tons of gold and jewelry lie in the holds of Spanish and English sailboats resting at the bottom.
2. Pacific Coast of Micronesia, Chuuk Islands Region
In the Pacific Ocean near the islands of the state of Chuuk, a cemetery of warships is hidden under water. Vessels that were considered the pride of the Japanese Pacific Fleet rest on it. According to the plan of the government of Japan, with the help of these ships, first Micronesia and New Guinea were to be seized, and then Australia. But fate decreed otherwise.
In 1944, a large naval base was located in Japanese-occupied Micronesia, where there were more than 100 ships of the 4th Imperial Navy. During Operation Hillston, carried out on February 17, 1944 by the US Navy, the base was destroyed and the Japanese ships were flooded.
According to divers, 60 large and 100 small Japanese warships sunk by US military forces rest in the Chuuk Island area. In addition to ships, this cemetery also contains Japanese Air Force aircraft - at least 275 fighters.
This wreck graveyard is popular with divers and WWII explorers. But even today it is not safe to swim there - unexploded bombs remained on the dead ships.
3. Coral Sea, Great Barrier Reef
The ship graveyard in the Coral Sea near the coast of Australia is no less than in the Caribbean. The main reason for the death of ships here were coral reefs, which the ships stumbled upon during storms and fogs.
This cemetery was formed in the era of the colonization of Australia by the British Empire - in the XVIII-XIX centuries. And 60% of the ships lying at the bottom of the Coral Sea once sailed under the British flag and transported goods, precious metals and the families of the colonialists.
Scuttled ships near the Great Barrier Reef were discovered at the end of the 20th century. To date, less than 10% of the ships lying on the underwater coral reefs of the Coral Sea have been explored. And the most famous were the following found ships:
- English military frigate "Pandora", sunk due to a collision with a reef in 1791.
- The brig "Swiftsure" (the former "L'Inconstant", on which Napoleon Bonaparte left the island of Elba in 1815), ran into a reef and went to the bottom in 1829.
- The 109-meter passenger liner Yongala, which was lost in a storm in 1911.
4. The coast of the Atlantic Ocean near the island of Sable
The floating island of Sable was called the “ship-eater” by medieval sailors. Near it, they found the last berth for 400 passenger and merchant ships. According to the observations of Canadian lighthouse keepers on the island in the 19th century, an average of 2 ships per year sank here. And in the XVII-XVIII centuries, disasters happened more often - sailing ships could not withstand storms, and they were carried aground.
There are two reasons for the mass death of sailboats and steamships near Sable: changeable weather and loose sands hidden under water. As the cold Labrador current collides with the warm Gulfsteer here, the weather is constantly changing, and a light tailwind turns into a hurricane in a matter of minutes. And the bottom near Sable is uneven and covered with sands, into which the ships carried aground by the wind were completely sucked in in 2-3 days.
Of the hundreds of ships that ran aground near Sable and died in loose sands, the most famous are:
- The English ship "Francis", which carried the things of the Duke of York and died at the end of the 18th century.
- The English ship "Princess Amalia", which went to the bottom in 1801.
- The passenger steamer "State of Virginia" sank in 1879.
- The French steamship La Bourgogne sank in the summer of 1898.
- The steamer Crafton Hall, which ran aground and was swallowed up by the sands in the spring of 1898.
5. Bay of Biscay, closer to the Spanish coast
The picturesque Bay of Biscay, stretching between the Spanish and French coasts, is considered cursed by sailors. More than 200 Spanish, Turkish, French and English merchant ships perished in the bay due to turbulent undercurrents and changeable weather. Also, military frigates sunk during the Anglo-French wars rest here.
The ship cemetery in the Bay of Biscay has been collected for centuries, so significant treasures and historical monuments are hidden under the waters.
For example, rare wines made in the 16th century were brought to the surface from one ship. The cost of a bottle of wine, which has been under water for 400 years, at an auction has reached the price of 2000 English pounds.
6. English Channel, near the coast of the city of Deal
In the English Channel, 10 km from the British city of Deal, there is the notorious Goodwin Shoal, a place where 2000 ships sank between 1600 and 1991. The reason for the death of most of them was loose sands, breaking and dragging ships into themselves, which were “lucky” to run aground.
The insidiousness of this section of the English Channel is that the location of the shoals is constantly changing and it is impossible to predict which place the ships need to bypass. Under the action of the ebb and flow of the tides, the sands shift, and the captains of sailboats, passing the Goodwin stranded, relied solely on luck.
Luck did not smile at everyone, and ships loaded with goods, gold and jewelry regularly went under water. The crews and passengers of the sinking ships were not always able to escape - according to researchers, 50,000 people met their death here.
Of the 2,000 ships buried under the waters of the English Channel, the most famous are:
- English warship "Styling Castle", which was lost in a storm in 1703
- 50-gun English frigate "Marie", sunk in 1703
- The steamer "Violet", which went to the bottom with the crew in 1857
- The steamship Mahatta, which ran aground and broke in two in 1909
- The ocean liner Montrose, wrecked in 1914
- The cargo ship Prospector, which was lost due to a collision with the cruise ship Chusan in 1953.
7. Aegean Sea, region of the Greek island of Fourni
Archaeologists found a ship cemetery in the Aegean Sea in the 21st century. They were struck by the number and variety of ships resting here at the bottom. In 2015 and 2016, 55 ships were explored, and this is only a small part of the underwater cemetery. The oldest ship found here is a rowing galley built in the 6th century BC, and the newest is a steamer that sank at the beginning of the 19th century.
The reason for the death of ships in the Aegean Sea is the rocky shores of the bays, in which sailing ships hid from the north wind and drifted. If the direction of the wind suddenly changed and a hurricane began, the ships in the bays were smashed against the coastal rocks.
Hello! Vladimir Raichev is in touch, as you can hear me, reception-reception. I'm in a great mood, I'm on vacation, I devote my free time to the blog. Today I have prepared another top catastrophe for you. Maritime disasters happen at least as often as air crashes, so our meeting today will be dedicated to them.
But first, imagine what a person who goes on a cruise experiences? Sea, sun, expensive liner. Have you already felt it for yourself? Agree that this is a real idyll.
All the disasters that are told about have turned cruises from a fantastic idyll into a real nightmare. Over the past 100 years, the world has become aware of many tragedies on the water, which will haunt the memory and consciousness of people for a long time to come. Like, for example, the crash of the Swedish warship Vasa.
The story of the Titanic is probably known to everyone. It was a luxury liner. It sank on its maiden voyage off the coast of Nova Scotia. Then, as a result of a collision with an iceberg, more than 1,500 people died.
One of the most majestic ships never made it to its destination. For a long time it was believed that the reason for the death of the liner lies in the negligence of the crew and the captain, and even tighter in their pride. Today the situation has changed a little.
New research is being done. According to one of them, the cause of the crash was the strengthening of the current, which brought huge icebergs. According to scientists, at that time the Moon approached the Earth as close as possible in 1000 years, which contributed to a change in the course.
In general, I already wrote about the many reasons for the sinking of the Titanic in my article.
Disaster of the Empress of Ireland
This happened in 1914. In the history of Canada, a terrible tragedy at sea was the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. This liner sank as a result of a collision with a coal carrier. There was a collision on the St. Lawrence River. The crash happened in 14 minutes.
As a result of this disaster, the Empress sank to a depth of more than 40 meters. More than 1000 people died. Despite the number of victims, this story is unknown to most people. Everything happened so fast that most of the passengers did not even realize what had happened.
The story of the sinking of the Lusitania
During World War I, the tragedy of the Lusitania occurred in 1915. The sinking of the Lusitania is considered one of the most mysterious events associated with the history of the First World War.
The reason was the torpedoing by a German submarine. This was the first official version, which had many omissions and obvious inaccuracies. Many of the researchers on this issue say that ammunition was placed on board.
This is also confirmed by one of the passengers, a Canadian professor who was on board. After the torpedo was blown up, a second explosion was heard. It was explosive ammunition. For many, everything about the Lusitania has become a dirty story.
Tragedy of Laconia
The Laconia liner went on an 11-day Christmas cruise in December 1963. There were over 1,000 people on board. On December 22, a fire broke out on the ship. It started in the booth of a hairdressing salon.
Stuart, who noticed the smoke, was trying to put out the fire, which was spreading rapidly and dynamically. From the corridor, the fire spread to the common cabins. More than 120 people died because of this incident.
Disasters with ships and liners that have been happening recently are less significant in terms of the number of victims. However, they also deserve our attention. Thanks to modern technical development, it is possible to avoid casualties and adverse consequences as much as possible.
For example, we can take the ship "Norwegian Dream", which collided with a cargo ship. It happened in 1999. The number of passengers who were on board reached 2400 thousand.
Only 3 people received minor injuries. The evacuation of passengers took place as soon as possible, which made it possible to avoid the appearance of victims.
One of the latest tragedies known to the whole world was the story of the Costa Concordia liner. There were approximately 4,200 people on board. Due to disorganization, as well as insufficient training of the ship's crew, 17 people died. 15 people were never found. More than 80 people were injured.
But despite the fact that human casualties in water disasters have recently become minimal, the costs from them are not decreasing. Why are there costs, this is all a matter of gain, imagine what kind of stress a person receives during a crash.
In my understanding, the expectation of an imminent death is a huge blow to the human psyche, which can hardly be compared with anything.
That's all for today, subscribe to blog updates, I have something to tell you about. Share the article with your friends on social networks, I am sure that they will also be interested in reading about water disasters. Take care of yourself, until we meet again, bye-bye.
The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia was wrecked after hitting a reef off Giglio Island on January 13, 2012, killing 32 passengers and crew. 613 days after the disaster, work began on lifting the vessel. The complex rescue operation "parbuckling" was the largest and most expensive in history: it cost $ 800 million, and it took many months to prepare. In fact, the operation took 19 hours, and after its completion, the liner took a vertical position under the joyful cries of the crowd gathered on the coast.
(Total 38 photos)
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1. View of the Costa Concordia, after the ship ran aground and fell on its side off the coast of Isola del Giglio, January 14, 2012.
The Costa Concordia sank on January 13 last year off the Italian island of Giglio. The ship, which was carrying several thousand people, ran into a reef due to the fact that the captain of the ship, Francesco Schettino, decided to come closer to the shore to greet his friend.
During the crash of the liner, 30 people died, two more are missing. More than 4 thousand people were evacuated, some of them were injured.
The Costa Concordia has become the largest passenger ship to have ever been wrecked.
The Italian press published records of the black boxes of the sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia, which were previously considered non-existent due to the recorders allegedly turned off at the time of the voyage. The negotiations serve as convincing evidence of the guilt of the captain of the liner, Francesco Schettino, and indicate that after the collision with the reef, real panic reigned among the crew members.
Recorder data showed that Schettino took the ship off autopilot and took control at 9:39 p.m., six minutes before the collision, which occurred at 9:45 p.m.
At 09:56, the captain called the rescue officer on duty and admitted his guilt: “I screwed up. Listen, I'm dying. Do not tell me anything". A few minutes later, he called the same officer back, but already tried to shift the responsibility to the junior officer: “This is all Palombo. He told me: "Swim, let's get closer, closer." Well, I swam closer, hitting the reef with the stern. And I just wanted to please him, it's just a disaster.
Further, the captain actually ceased to take part in the management of the ship, delaying the start of the evacuation of passengers. As a result, it began when the ship was already heavily filled with water, and orders were given during the evacuation not by Schettino, but by his colleagues.
Cruise ship captain Francesco Schettino boards a police car in Grosseto, Italy on January 14, 2012. Schettino was arrested on charges of manslaughter.
According to the prosecution, Captain Schettino brought the Costa Concordia cruise ship too close to the coast of the island of Giglio and landed the ship on a rock. If found guilty, the captain faces up to 20 years in prison. Francesco Schettino himself denies the accusations against him, arguing that the rock that the liner ran into was not on the sea charts. The captain's defense during the hearing once again offered the court a plea bargain, under which Schettitino would agree to a three-year prison term if the court ruled that he was only partially guilty of the tragedy. According to forecasts, the fate of the captain is unlikely to be decided before October.
8. Rescuers work near the cruise ship Costa Concordia, lying on its side off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio.
9. Rescuers work at the crash site of the liner Costa Concordia.
According to numerous testimonies, confirmed by video recordings, the crew of the Costa Concordia simply failed the rescue operation. Captain Schettino, according to Vesti, instead of starting the evacuation and issuing a distress signal, announced 15 minutes after the collision that the ship simply had minor problems with the generator. Half an hour later, the passengers were already standing near the boats, still sheathed, and the captain again reported trouble with the generator. Only closer to 11 o'clock, when the list reached 30 degrees, there were seven short and one long beeps, which meant that the passengers had to leave the ship. Panic ensued, stampede. Captain Schettino, according to investigators, was one of the first to leave the ship without sending a distress signal. The Coast Guard itself contacted the ship in distress. Only then, late at night, did the real rescue operation begin. Those who did not get into the boat (four did not have time to launch, apparently due to too much roll) were filmed using helicopters when they clung to the rails of the liner that had boarded. Some swam to the shore, which was very close.
10. Transportation of furniture recovered from the sunken liner.
Most of the passengers were taken to the island of Giglio itself. The inhabitants of the island assisted the victims of the crash, brought them food, drink, warm clothes, placed them in the local church, school and other buildings.
On January 14-15, two newlyweds from South Korea and one Italian crew member were found and rescued on the liner.
11. A diver inspects the ship's hull.
12. Divers inside the liner Costa Concordia.
On board the Costa Concordia cruise liner salvaged from the reefs, valuables were found, the total value of which is more than € 10 million. The money and jewelry that the passengers of the sinking liner did not have time to take with them in a hurry were kept in the bank and jewelry boutiques located on board the ship, as well as in the cells in the passenger cabins.
13. The wreckage of the liner under water.
14. Diver inspects the ship.
15. Divers work inside the liner.
On board the sunken liner were about six thousand works of art. The most valuable of them is a rare collection of Japanese engravings of the 18th-19th centuries, in particular the work of Katsushika Hokusai. The liner also contained 19th-century Bohemian glass and other antiques that adorned the interior, decorations from the liner's jewelry stores, and numerous valuables that had been left behind by passengers leaving the ship. In this regard, there were fears that these valuables could become the prey of "treasure hunters"
16. Inside the liner Costa Concordia.
17. Preparations for the operation to remove half a million gallons of fuel from the liner Costa Concordia, January 28, 2012.
On January 16, an oily liquid began to leak from the vessel. It was not fuel yet, according to the Italian Ministry of the Environment, but if the ship had slipped off the rocks and broken, then two thousand three hundred tons of fuel could have entered the sea. Therefore, we carried out the pumping of fuel.
18. Costa Concordia off the coast of Giglio.
19. Relatives of the victims of the shipwreck touch a memorial plaque with the names of 32 victims a year after the disaster on the Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, January 13, 2013.
21. Specialists collect spilled fuel near the liner Costa Concordia, January 25, 2012.
22. Workers use massive steel tanks to try to return the Costa Concordia to a vertical position on January 11, 2013.
Engineers had never before had to move such a large ship that sank so close to the shore. Costa Concordia weighs more than 114 thousand tons, and the length of the ship is comparable to three football fields.
23. Welders work on the liner Costa Concordia, July 15, 2013. The hull of the liner was compressed by 3 meters under its own weight.
If the liner did roll over, the consequences for the environment would be catastrophic. The reef in the protected area near the island of Giglio would have been destroyed, and the ship itself would have gone deep under water.
26. Employees of the American company Titan and the Italian company Micoperi are working on the liner Costa Concordia, September 15, 2013. The rescue operation "parbuckling" is designed to lift the liner using a series of cables and hydraulic machines.
By mid-2013, the liner was still lying on board near the coast, attracting many tourists. Work was underway to prepare it for lifting: divers were building a platform from the shore side, volumetric square counterweight tanks were suspended on the opposite side, which, after filling with water, were supposed to put the ship on a keel.30. The beginning of the final stage of the operation to lift the liner Costa Concordia, September 16, 2013.33. On September 16, 2013 at 09:00, the operation to raise the vessel began. Photo taken that day: The Costa Concordia is upright for the first time since January 2012.36. Starboard of the Costa Concordia, September 17, 2013.
37. Liner Costa Concordia is in a vertical position after the rescue operation, September 17, 2013.
The 19-hour operation to raise the vessel has ended. The ship was brought to a vertical position with the help of rollers and 36 steel cables and a special platform built at a depth of 30 m.
38. Liner Costa Concordia after a large-scale operation returned to a vertical position to the applause and joyful cries of local residents, September 17, 2013.
Upright, the Concordia will remain off Giglio until at least spring, when the ship is towed to one of the nearby ports. The raising of the ship cost 600 million US dollars.
On January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia left the port of Civitavecchia for Savona. The last cruise included several Italian cities, as well as Barcelona and Marseille. Late in the evening, near the Italian village of Giglio Porto on the island of Giglio (Tuscany region), the ship ran into a stone reef and, having received a huge hole, began to sink. The operation to rescue passengers began with a delay, because. no request for help was received from the Costa Concordia (Captain Francesco Schettino, instead of starting the evacuation and issuing a distress signal, announced 15 minutes after the collision that the ship had just a slight problem with the generator). The coast guard itself contacted the ship in distress, after which the evacuation of passengers and crew members to the shore began.
Divers inspect the sunken Costa Concordia. In mid-March 2012, information appeared in the media about the theft of the ship's bell, despite the protection of the area.
A lifeguard descends from a helicopter aboard the tumbled ship Costa Concordia. The photo was taken near the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy on January 18, 2012.
Many were photographed against the backdrop of a sunken huge liner. Young people decided not only to act against his background, but also to wallow initially in the mud. They also picked up a very unusual music for the first wedding dance, asking for help from the wedding dance studio “You are with me”. A selection of musical compositions has become one of the best gifts for them. In addition, in the studio they took several lessons from a professional teacher with a high dance qualification. The newlyweds really wanted the main event in their lives to be remembered not only by them, but also by all those invited to this event.
A scuba diver inspects the ship's hull.
Firefighters, standing at the lighthouse, inspect the cruise liner.
Italian firefighters climb onto a cruise ship that wrecked on January 13, 2012 off the island of Giglio in the Mediterranean Sea.
Firefighters work on the sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia.
Rescuers at the stranded ship. The photo was taken off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy.
The Italian Andra Faccioli, using a laser scanner, is conducting the necessary research on the ship Costa Concordia lying on its side. The liner, costing about $500 million, could carry more than 4,200 passengers and crew members.
The lifeguard climbs the Costa Condordia.
Firefighters work on the surviving side of the sunken cruise ship.
A soldier walks past a photo of a missing passenger on a ship that has run aground off the west coast of Italy.
Scuba divers pull out of the water a man who was a passenger of the Costa Concordia.
Divers are inspecting the interior of the liner.
A scuba diver makes his way through floating pieces of furniture inside the Costa Concordia ship.
Rescue operation off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio.
The wreck of the liner at the bottom of the sea.
Costa Concordia at the bottom. The course of the search and rescue operation was suspended several times due to the deterioration of weather conditions, the movement of the vessel and the growing danger to rescuers.
A pile of chairs on the deck of a sunken cruise ship.
A diver inspects a submerged passenger ship.
A scuba diver at the anchor of a ship that has run aground.
Rescuers examine the sunken liner.
Photo of the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the west coast of Italy.
View of the sunken ship from the shore.
The liner had 13 passenger decks, each of which was named after a locality. For example, in the hold - Holland, Sweden and Belgium, and in the area of \u200b\u200bthe klotik (a rounded trim with protruding edges on the top of the mast or flagpole) - Poland.
At 10 pm CET, when most of the passengers were having dinner at a restaurant, the ship hit a rocky reef. As a result of hitting the ground along the port side below the waterline, the ship received a hole about 70 meters long and began to sink.
Rescuers inspect huge boulders protruding from the hull of the Costa Concordia cruise ship. The photo was taken the day after the crash.
The captain of the ship, Francesco Schettino, admitted during the investigation that he decided to bring the ship closer to the coast of Giglio in order to greet the former captain of the ship living on the island. On the ill-fated evening, January 13, 2012, the command to turn was given to Schettino belatedly and the ship ran into a sandbank.
By the morning of January 14, 2012, the ship lay on the starboard side, touching the bottom.
The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia was 291 meters long and 38 meters wide.
At the time of the disaster, there were 3,216 passengers from 62 countries and 1,023 crew members on board.
A rescue operation was organized, most of the passengers and crew were brought ashore.
Italian investigators, having “talked” with the ship’s black box, found out that the ship approached the shore too close, and the captain started the evacuation too late, did not send a distress signal, which significantly delayed the start of the rescue operation. It was also established that Schettino was one of the first to leave the ship (almost a day before the end of the evacuation of all passengers).
The fate of foreigners was immediately taken up by native embassies and consulates. The Filipinos were taken away, a helicopter flew for the Japanese, three Czechs were immediately taken away from the scene.
But 42 citizens of the Russian Federation from among the passengers of the Costa Concordia cruise liner were for a long time in a small Italian town without money, documents and clothes - everything was left on board the liner. Not a single representative of the Russian embassy and travel company took care of them.
Employees of the Russian Foreign Ministry offered people without money, documents and things to get to Barcelona on their own, where their cruise was supposed to end.
Rescuers at the crash site.
An Italian fire helicopter picks up passengers from the Costa Concordia.
According to eyewitnesses, the ship's crew was confused and could not organize an evacuation for a long time, panic and chaos reigned on board. The liner strongly deviated from the course, which is strictly prohibited, and the reef that Costa Concordia ran into is marked on all possible maps.
Divers inspect the semi-submerged ship.
Most of the passengers were taken to the island of Giglio itself. Local residents helped the victims of the crash, brought them food, drink, shared warm clothes, placing them in the local church and school.