No One Talks About the Shipwreck More Tragic Than the Titanic

They said it was the most technologically advanced; they said it was unsinkable; and when it sank in, it became a movie. These were the main reasons why the Titanic disaster became world famous, but unfortunately it is not the only large-scale shipwreck, and unfortunately there were many worse cases than the Titanic tragedy; one of them took place on April 27, 1865. The Sultan Steamboat carried passengers and goods every day between St. Louis and New Orleans. It was a rather large wooden boat with three decks, 260 feet long and 70 feet wide, almost twice the size of a basketball court. The ship had a capacity of about 350 passengers, but on that fateful day, there were more than 2,000 people on board. On April 23, it was making a routine trip from New Orleans when it broke down. Something was wrong with the boiler, so the ship docked in Vicksburg to be repaired in port. Mason found out about a great opportunity to make a lot of money. He just had to lead a large group of ex-prisoners north. The captain agreed to do it, but the problem was that the repair of the boiler required a lot of time. Fearing that competitors would take over the job, Mason decided to sail on despite the ship's malfunctions. Instead of overhauling, he patched holes in the boiler and called all the ex-prisoners on board, so the boiler was broken, there were too many passengers, no lifeboats, and the river conditions were not the best. The captain also refused to send the ex-prisoners into the hold, so they were all with the regular passengers. The possibility of a shipwreck was high, but the greedy desire to earn more money was stronger. Sultana sailed down the river for two days. At this time began one of the greatest floods in the history of the Mississippi; the river overflowed its banks, and because of the flood, when the water level rose several feet, all the trees on the banks were gone, and only the tops stood out of the water. The ship sailed against that strong current, causing the boiler to start on April 26 because it was too strong to operate in the evening. The Sultana arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, and loaded even more than 120 tones of sugar and 200 passengers, who changed. incredibly difficult. Around midnight, the ship continued its dangerous journey. The captain went to the barges to load cargo at 1:00 a.m. The ship left the barge at 2:00 a.m. The broken boiler could not hold the cargo when it suddenly exploded. Sultana was only seven miles north of Memphis. The Sultan disaster is considered the most tragic shipwreck in American history. The exact number of those who did not survive is still unknown, according to various sources. This number varied from 961 to 1800. Do not be surprised that almost no one knows this history. There were many more survivors of the Titanic tragedy, and everyone heard about it, but the Sultan sank in a high-profile incident 12 days before the shipwreck. The country lost Abraham Lincoln, and people still haven't recovered from this news, so nobody paid much attention to the Sultan tragedy. Many disasters have happened very recently in historical terms.

One of them happened in 2002. Keiju lejula was a Senegalese ship. The ferry ran twice a week, mostly along the coast of Dakar, carrying passengers trading in mangoes and palm oil. It made daily trips and never had serious problems. thanks to modern rescue equipment and a good repair service, but one day the crew discovered a malfunction and sent the boat to port for almost a year. Lejula was out of line and waiting for repairs, but did not receive quality service after poor maintenance. The ferry departed on its last voyage on September 26, 2002. The Lejula was travelling between southern Senegal and Dakar and headed for Gambia at 11 a.m., where a severe storm began. The wind raised high waves, but this was not critical for a large cruise ship if the number of people on board did not exceed the established norm. Lejula was supposed to carry about 500 passengers, but there were many more. Bad repairs by two merchants and a strong storm caused serious problems for the ship that day, but the main factor in the wreck was that the Lejula was only built to sail in coastal waters, but that day it was sailing far from the coast. Big waves started rocking the boat, and at some point it just capsized. The ship's deck went under the water, and its lower parts stuck above the surface like an iceberg. All the passengers sitting in the cabin fell to the ceiling and were lost in space. There were no holes or defects in the ship's hold, and water flooded the lower decks for a long time. The ship was in a bent position for several hours and then began to sink as water seeped through the deck. The sea was warm, but no one came to save the passengers. People had to wait almost four days to be rescued, and unfortunately, only a few survived.

The Philippines is a very dangerous area for ships. This place consists of several thousand islands and a large, shallow body of water. Reefs and traps can cause ships to run aground and cause hull damage. On September 20, 1987, one of the worst disasters in the history of navigation occurred. A Philippine passenger ferry named Dona Paz left an island and headed for Manila. The sun was shining, the ocean was calm, and visibility was good, but somehow the crew did not notice that the tanker Vector was approaching them. Both ships collided at low speed. The accident was not severe, but the problem was that the vector had a tone of oil, and the monk's feet hit the cargo hold where the oil was stored. It shone through the whole ocean, and then a spark slipped through it. Both ships not only caught fire but also filled with water. Both ships sank within seconds. Only twenty people survived the disaster. On September 27, 1854, the passenger ship Arctic sailed from Liverpool to New York. Fog fell, and visibility worsened. Another boat emerged from the thick white fog: the French steamship Vesta. The ships were so close that a collision was inevitable. The French ship was smaller, so it seemed to the captain of the Arctic that the Vesta had received a lot of damage, and when he looked at the other ship, his boat was quickly filling with water. The order was to go ashore as soon as possible, but the ship's engines stopped working due to the flood, and then the crew began to launch lifeboats with women and children. However, when rescue workers found the lifeboats full of people, it turned out that only 87,400 people survived: the C5 crew and 22 passengers. Surprisingly, there were only adults among them. The ship's captain survived by clinging to the wreckage. All the newspapers wrote about this story as one of the most terrible and shameful tragedies in the history of the ship. The survivors were criticised for not saving the women and children, and the crew members were accused of breaking the law because the safety of passengers should be higher than that of sailors, but despite this, none of them were convicted. Unfortunately, shipwrecks still happen today, but fortunately, thanks to modern navigation systems and radar, they are fewer than before. But no technology can guarantee that there won't be a superstorm or some other emergency that no one can foresee.