TASS-DOSIER. On April 27, 2017, the research vessel of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation "Liman" sank in the Black Sea as a result of a collision with a merchant ship.
This case is unprecedented in the history of the Soviet and Russian Navy after World War II.
After 1945, submarines became the victims of such navigational accidents. At least four such disasters are known:
- the submarine M-200 in 1956 in the Gulf of Tallinn collided with the destroyer "Statny" and sank, killing 28 sailors;
- S-342 in 1958, when leaving the Ekaterininsky harbor of the city of Polyarny, collided with the Alazan tanker, 7 people died, the submarine was subsequently restored;
- nuclear missile carrier K-56 in 1973 in Peter the Great Bay crashed into the research vessel "Akademik Berg", killing 27 sailors, the submarine was repaired;
- Submarine S-178 in the East Bosporus near the coast of Primorsky Krai collided with the vessel "Refrigerator-13" and sank, killing 32 submariners.
There were very few cases of collisions of large surface ships, resulting in their death, human casualties or serious damage, in the Navy of the USSR and Russia. These include the following:
March 13, 1977 At the entrance to the Polish port of Swinoujscie, a small anti-submarine ship MPK-97 of the Baltic Fleet collided with the Swedish tanker Runo. The accident occurred in conditions of heavy fog due to incorrect actions of the MPK-97 commander. The stem of the anti-submarine ship was broken, and the hull plating in the bow was torn off the tanker.
November 27, 1978 near the island of Toros in the Barents Sea, a small anti-submarine ship MPK-40 collided with a border ship "Sapphire". Both ships were severely damaged and underwent lengthy repairs.
August 11, 1982 During night exercises in the Desantnaya Bay (Vladivostok), landing ships BDK-181 and SDK-172 collided. Both received moderate injuries.
September 24, 1985 The training ship of the Baltic Fleet "Khasan", passing through the Bosphorus, collided with the Turkish missile boat Meltem in the fog. The Turkish ship sank, the number of victims is unknown.
May 14, 1986 In the area of the Bosphorus Strait, in foggy conditions, the ship "Kapitan Soroka" of the Black Sea Shipping Company, en route to Odessa, crashed into the supply ship "Berezina" of the Black Sea Fleet, which was leaving Sevastopol with a cargo of fuel, food and ammunition. On the Berezina, the board was torn apart, a fire broke out. However, the hole was repaired, the fire was extinguished, and the transport was able to return to Sevastopol on its own. There were no dead or injured.
August 23, 1986 in the area of the Rybachy Peninsula (Murmansk region), the B-103 submarine of the Northern Fleet hit the TL-995 torpedo stem, after which it turned over with its keel up and sank. Seven people died.
September 8, 1988 in the Sea of Japan, a small anti-submarine ship MPK-40 collided with a border guard PSKR-803. The reason was the erroneous actions of the commanders during a dangerous approach. The ships received significant damage and were out of order for a long time.
December 8, 1988 in the Gulf of Riga, the medium-sized freezing fishing trawler "KI-8067" of the collective farm "For the Motherland", heading from Baltiysk to fish, slightly deepened into the area of military exercises, where it collided with the patrol ship SKR-86 of the Baltic Fleet. The stem was deformed on the patrol boat, the trawler received a hole 0.7 m below the waterline and sank during towing. There were no victims.
In all the cases described above, the cause of the disasters was the errors of the crews who violated the established rules of navigation.
For hundreds of years of sailing on various ships, sailboats and barges across the expanses of the seas and oceans, there have been many kinds of accidents and shipwrecks. Films have even been made about some of them, the most popular of which, of course, is the Titanic. But which shipwrecks were the largest in terms of the size of the ship and the number of victims? In this ranking, we answer this question by presenting the biggest maritime disasters.
11
The rating opens with a British passenger liner that was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915, in a zone designated by the Kaiser government as a zone of submarine warfare. The ship, sailing with a painted over name and not raising any flag above it, sank in 18 minutes, 13 kilometers from the coast of Ireland. 1198 people died out of 1959 who were on board. The destruction of this ship turned the public opinion of many countries against Germany and contributed to the entry of the United States into the First World War two years later.
10
Single-screw steamer, had a capacity of 7142 register tons, a length of 132 meters, a beam of 17 meters, a maximum speed of 11 knots. On April 12, 1944, a steamship with explosives with a total mass of more than 1,500 tons stood up for unloading at the pier of the port of Bombay. There were other cargoes on board - 8,700 tons of cotton, 128 ingots of gold, sulfur, wood, engine oil, etc. The ship was loaded in violation of safety regulations. At about 2 p.m. a fire broke out on board, and no actions contributed to its elimination. At 16:06 there was an explosion, which generated a tidal wave of such force that the Jalampada ship, with a displacement of almost 4,000 tons, ended up on the roof of a 17-meter warehouse. After 34 min. there was a second explosion.
Burning cotton scattered within a radius of 900 meters from the epicenter and set fire to everything: ships, warehouses, houses. A strong wind from the sea drove a wall of fire to the city. The fires were extinguished only after 2 weeks. It took about 7 months to restore the port. Official statistics announced 1376 deaths, 2408 people were admitted to hospitals. The fire destroyed 55,000 tons of grain, thousands of tons of seeds, oil, oil; a huge amount of military equipment and almost one square mile of city blocks. 6 thousand firms went bankrupt, 50 thousand people lost their jobs. Many small and 4 large ships, dozens were destroyed.
9
It was with this ship that the most famous disaster on the water occurred. The British White Star Line steamer was the second of three Olympic-class twin steamers and the largest passenger liner in the world at the time of construction. Gross tonnage 46,328 register tons, displacement 66,000 tons. The ship is 269 meters long, 28 meters wide and 52 meters high. The engine room had 29 boilers and 159 coal fireboxes. Maximum speed 25 knots. On its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, it collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. There were 2224 people on board. Of these, 711 people were saved, 1513 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary, several feature films were shot based on its plot.
8
In the harbor of the Canadian city of Halifax on December 6, 1917, the French military cargo ship Mont Blanc, which was fully loaded with one explosive - TNT, pyroxylin and picric acid, collided with the Norwegian ship Imo. As a result of the strongest explosion, the port and a significant part of the city were completely destroyed. About 2,000 people died as a result of an explosion under the rubble of buildings and because of the fires that arose after the explosion. Approximately 9,000 people were injured, 400 people lost their sight. The explosion in Halifax is one of the strongest explosions arranged by mankind, this explosion is considered the most powerful explosion of the pre-nuclear era.
7
This French auxiliary cruiser served as a flagship and participated in the neutralization of the Greek fleet. Displacement - 25,000 tons, length - 166 meters, width - 27 meters, power - 29,000 horsepower, speed - 20 knots, cruising range - 4,700 miles at 10 knots. She sank in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece on February 26, 1916 after a torpedo attack by the German submarine U-35. Of the 4,000 people on board, 3,130 died, 870 escaped.
6
After 1944, this German passenger ocean liner was converted into a floating hospital, participated in the evacuation of mostly wounded soldiers and refugees from East Prussia from the advancing Red Army. The liner left the port of Pillau on February 9, 1945 and headed for Kiel, there were more than 4,000 people on board - wounded military personnel, soldiers, refugees, medical staff and crew members. On the night of February 10 at 00:55, the Soviet submarine S-13 torpedoed the liner with two torpedoes. The ship sank 15 minutes later, killing 3,608 and saving 659 people. When the liner was torpedoed, the submarine commander was convinced that in front of him was not a passenger liner, but a military cruiser.
5
The passenger ferry Dona Paz, registered in the Philippines, sank on December 20, 1987 at about 10 p.m. near the island of Marinduque after a collision with the tanker Vector. Approximately 4,375 people died in the process, making this the largest maritime disaster in peacetime.
4
This passenger-cargo ship of the "Adzharia" type was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928, and on November 7, 1941, it was sunk by the Germans near the Crimean coast. The death toll was, according to various estimates, from 3,000 to 4,500 people. On the ship were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens, including the staff of 23 military and civilian hospitals, the leadership of the pioneer camp and part of the party leadership of the Crimea. The loading of the evacuees was in a hurry, and their exact number is not known. There is a version that the cause of this maritime disaster was the criminal mistakes of the Black Sea Fleet command. The crowded motor ship, instead of making the transition to the Caucasian, was sent by the command to Yalta.
3
A cargo ship built in Oslo, Norway, launched on 4 April 1940. It was confiscated by the Germans after Norway was occupied by Germany. At first it was used as a conditional target for training the crews of German submarines. Later, the ship took part in the evacuation of people by sea from the advancing Red Army. It was armed with cannons. This ship managed to make four trips, in which 19,785 people were evacuated. On the night of April 16, 1945, the ship making the fifth trip was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine L-3, after which the Goya sank in the Baltic Sea. More than 6,900 people died in the disaster.
2
On May 3, 1945, a tragedy occurred in the Baltic Sea, the victims of which were approximately 8,000 people. The German liner "Cap Arkona" and the cargo ship "Tilbek", transporting prisoners from the evacuating concentration camps, were fired upon by British aircraft. As a result, more than 5,000 people died on the Cap Arkon, and about 2,800 on the Tilbeck. According to one version, this raid was a mistake on the part of the British Air Force, who believed that German troops were on the ships, according to another, the pilots were ordered to destroy everything enemy ships in the area.
1
The most on the water happened with this German passenger liner, which since 1940 has been converted into a floating hospital. During the Second World War, it was used as an infirmary, a hostel for the 2nd training brigade of submariners. The death of the ship, torpedoed on January 30, 1945 by the Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of A. I. Marinesko, is considered the largest disaster in maritime history - according to some historians, real losses could be more than 9,000 people.
At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second blew up the empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. With the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some lifeboats were launched, and yet there were many people in the icy water. From the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats full of people. About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.
We all know about the ill-fated history of the Titanic, but few know that this tragedy was only the third largest loss in the history of shipping. Today we suggest you familiarize yourself with the list of the 10 most terrible disasters that occurred on the water.
1. MV Wilhelm Gustloff.
In January 1945, this German ship was hit by three torpedoes in the Baltic Sea while participating in the evacuation of civilians, military personnel and Nazi officials who were surrounded by the Red Army in East Prussia. The ship sank in less than 45 minutes. More than 9,400 people are estimated to have died.
2. MV Dona Paz.
This Philippine ferry sank after colliding with the oil tanker MT Vector on December 20, 1987. More than 4300 people died. The collision occurred late at night and resulted in a fire, and life jackets were locked, forcing passengers to jump into the burning water, which was also infested with sharks.
3. RMS Lusitania.
This British liner sailed on the Liverpool-New York route. During World War I, the ship was hit by German torpedoes on 7 May 1915 and sank within only 18 minutes of impact. The crash killed 1,198 people out of 1,959 on board.
4. RMS Lancastria.
This British ocean liner was requisitioned by the government during World War II. She sank on June 17, 1940, taking 4,000 lives with her. This catastrophe caused the death of more people than the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania combined.
5. RMS Empress of Ireland.
This Canadian liner sank in the St. Lawrence River after colliding with a Norwegian bulk carrier on May 29, 1914 due to heavy fog. 1012 people died (840 passengers and 172 crew members).
6. MV Goya.
The German transport ship MV Goya was carrying 6,100 passengers when it was sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea on April 16, 1945. The ship sank just 7 minutes after the impact. Almost all the people on board died. Only 183 people survived.
7. USS Indianapolis (CA-35).
On July 30, 1945, Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58 and sank 12 minutes later. Out of 1196 people, only 300 survived.
8. MV Le Joola.
A Senegalese ferry capsized off the Gambian coast on September 26, 2002, killing at least 1,863 people. As it became known, the ferry was overloaded, therefore, faced with a storm, it capsized after 5 minutes. Only 64 people survived.
9. SS Mont-Blanc.
This French ammunition freighter exploded in Halifax Harbor on December 6, 1917. The explosion caused the death of 2,000 people, including residents of the city. The explosion was triggered by a collision with the Norwegian ship SS Imo. The fire that resulted from the collision caused an explosion of ammunition that destroyed the harbor and the city.
10. RMS Titanic.
This is perhaps the most famous maritime tragedy of all time. The Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The sinking of the Titanic claimed 1,514 human lives.
On April 16, 1945, exactly 117 years after the death of Francisco Goya, the Goya ship was sunk by a torpedo attack carried out by a Soviet submarine. This catastrophe, which claimed 7,000 lives, was the largest shipwreck in world history.
"Goya"
"Goya" was a Norwegian cargo ship, requisitioned by the Germans. On April 16, 1945, it did not work out in the morning. The bombardment to which the ship was subjected became a grim omen of the coming catastrophe. Despite the defense, during the fourth raid, the projectile still hit the bow of the Goya. Several people were injured, but the ship remained afloat and it was decided not to cancel the flight.
For "Goya" it was the fifth evacuation flight from the advancing units of the Red Army. During the four previous campaigns, almost 20,000 refugees, wounded and soldiers were evacuated.
The Goya went on its last flight loaded to capacity. Passengers were in the aisles, on the stairs, in the holds. Not everyone had documents, so the exact number of passengers has not yet been established, from 6000 to 7000. All of them believed that the war was over for them, made plans and were full of hope ...
The ships (Goya was escorted by a convoy) were already at sea when, at 22:30, surveillance noticed an unidentified silhouette on the right side of the ship. Everyone was ordered to put on rescue residents. There were only 1500 of them on board the Goya. In addition, on one of the ships of the group, the Kronenfels, there was a breakdown in the engine room. Waiting for the end of the repair work, the ships lay adrift. An hour later, the ships continued on their way.
At 23:45, the Goya shuddered from a powerful torpedo attack. The Soviet submarine L-3, following the ships, began to act.
Panic broke out on the Goya. Jochen Hannema, a German tanker who became one of the few survivors, recalled: “Water rushed out of the huge holes formed as a result of torpedo hits. The ship broke into two parts and began to sink rapidly. All that was heard was the eerie rumble of a huge mass of water.
A huge ship, devoid of partitions, sank in some 20 minutes. Only 178 people survived.
"Wilhelm Gustlow"
On January 30, 1945, at 21:15, the S-13 submarine discovered in the Baltic waters the German transport Wilhelm Gustlov, accompanied by an escort, carrying, according to modern estimates, over 10 thousand people, most of whom were refugees from East Prussia : old people, children, women. But also on the Gustlov were German submarine cadets, crew members and other military personnel.
Submarine captain Alexander Marinesko began hunting. For almost three hours, the Soviet submarine followed the giant transporter (the displacement of the Gustlov was over 25 thousand tons. For comparison: the steamer Titanic and the battleship Bismarck had a displacement of about 50 thousand tons).
Having chosen the moment, Marinesko attacked the Gustlov with three torpedoes, each of which hit the target. The fourth torpedo with the inscription "For Stalin" got stuck. The submariners miraculously managed to avoid an explosion on the boat.
Avoiding the pursuit of the German military escort, the S-13 was bombed by over 200 depth charges.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustlov is considered one of the largest disasters in maritime history. According to official figures, 5,348 people died in it, according to some historians, real losses could exceed 9,000.
Junyo Maru
They were called the "Ships of Hell". These were Japanese merchant ships used to transport prisoners of war and workers (in fact, slaves, who were nicknamed "romushi") to the territories occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War. The “ships of hell” were not officially part of the Japanese navy and did not have identification marks, but the allied forces drowned them no less fiercely from this. In total, 9 "Ships of Hell" were sunk during the war, on which almost 25 thousand people died.
It is worth saying that the British and Americans could not have been unaware of the "cargo" that was transported on the ships, since the Japanese ciphers were deciphered.
The biggest disaster occurred on September 18, 1944. The British submarine Tradewind torpedoed the Japanese ship Junyo Maru. Of the life-saving equipment on the ship, stuffed to capacity with prisoners of war, there were two lifeboats and several rafts. On board were 4.2 thousand workers, 2.3 thousand prisoners of war Americans, Australians, British, Dutch and Indonesians.
The conditions in which the slaves had to survive on ships were simply horrendous. Many went crazy, died of exhaustion and stuffiness. When the torpedoed ship began to sink, there was no chance for the ship's prisoners to escape. The boats accompanying the "ship of hell" took only the Japanese and a small part of the prisoners on board. In total, 680 prisoners of war and 200 romushi remained alive.
This was the case when the living envied the dead. The miraculously escaped captives were sent to their destination - to build a railway to Sumatra. The chances of surviving there were not much greater than on the ill-fated ship.
"Armenia"
The cargo-passenger ship "Armenia" was built in Leningrad and was used on the Odessa-Batumi line. During the Great Patriotic War in August 1941, "Armenia" was converted into a medical transport ship. The board and deck began to be “decorated” with large red crosses, which, in theory, were supposed to protect the ship from attacks, but ...
During the defense of Odessa, "Armenia" made 15 flights to the besieged city, from where more than 16 thousand people were taken on board. The last flight of "Armenia" was a campaign from Sevastopol to Tuapse in November 1941. On November 6, having taken on board the wounded, almost the entire medical personnel of the Black Sea Fleet and civilians, "Armenia" left Sevastopol.
At night, the ship arrived in Yalta. The captain of the "Armenia" was forbidden to make the transition to Tuapse during daylight hours, but the military situation dictated otherwise. The port of Yalta did not have cover to protect against German air raids, and German troops were already on the near approaches to the city. And there wasn't much choice...
At 8 am on November 7, "Armenia" left Yalta and headed for Tuapse. At 11:25 a.m., the ship was attacked by a German He-111 torpedo bomber and sank less than 5 minutes after the torpedo hit the bow. Between 4,000 and 7,500 people were killed along with "Armenia", and only eight managed to escape. Until now, the causes of this terrible tragedy are controversial.
"Dona Paz"
The death of the Doña Paz ferry is the largest shipwreck that occurred in peacetime. This tragedy became a cruel lesson denouncing greed, unprofessionalism and sloppiness. The sea, as you know, does not forgive mistakes, and in the case of the Danya Paz, mistakes followed one after another .
The ferry was built in Japan in 1963. At that time it was called "Himeuri Maru". In 1975, he was sold to the Philippines for a profit. Since that time, he has been exploited even more than mercilessly. Designed to carry a maximum of 608 passengers, it was usually packed to capacity, seating between 1,500 and 4,500 people.
Twice a week, the ferry carried passengers on the route Manila - Tacloban - Catbalogan - Manila - Catbalogan - Tacloban - Manila. On December 20, 1987, the Doña Paz left on her last voyage from Tacloban to Manila. This flight was filled with a maximum of passengers - the Filipinos were in a hurry to the capital for the New Year.
At ten in the evening of the same day, the ferry collided with the huge tanker Vector. From the collision, both ships literally broke in half, thousands of tons of oil spilled into the ocean. The explosion caused a fire. The chances of salvation were reduced to almost zero. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the ocean at the site of the tragedy was teeming with sharks.
One of the survivors, Paquito Osabel, later recalled: “Neither the sailors nor the officers of the ship reacted in any way to what was happening. Everyone demanded life jackets and a lifeboat, but there were none. The lockers where the vests were kept were locked, and the keys could not be found. The boats were thrown into the water just like that, without any preparation. Panic, chaos, chaos reigned.
The rescue operation began only eight hours after the tragedy. 26 people were caught from the sea. 24 are passengers of the Donji Paz, two are sailors from the tanker Vector. Official statistics, which cannot be trusted, speak of the death of 1,583 people. More objective, independent experts claim that 4,341 people died in the disaster.
"Cap Arkona"
"Cap Arkona" was one of the largest passenger ships in Germany, with a displacement of 27,561 tons. Having survived almost the entire war, Cap Arkona died after the capture of Berlin by the Allied forces, when on May 3, 1945 the liner was sunk by British bombers.
Benjamin Jacobs, one of the prisoners who were on Cap Arcona, wrote in his book "The Dentist of Auschwitz": "Suddenly, planes appeared. We clearly saw their identification marks. "These are the British! Look, we are KaTsetniks! We are prisoners of concentration camps!" we shouted and waved at them. We waved our striped camp hats and pointed at our striped clothes, but there was no compassion for us. The British began to hurl napalm at the shaking and burning Cap Arcona. were at a distance of 15 m from the deck, we could clearly see the face of the pilot and thought that we had nothing to be afraid of.But then bombs rained down from the belly of the plane... Some fell on the deck, others into the water... They shot at us and at those who jumped into the water from machine guns. The water around the sinking bodies turned red."
On board the blazing Cap Arcona, more than 4,000 prisoners were burned to death or suffocated by the smoke. Some prisoners managed to break free and jump into the sea. Those who managed to avoid the sharks were picked up by trawlers. 350 prisoners, many of whom suffered from burns, managed to get out before the liner capsized. They swam ashore, but became victims of the SS. In total, 5594 people died on Cap Arcone.
"Lancasteria"
About the tragedy that occurred on June 17, 1940, Western historiography prefers to remain silent. Moreover, a veil of oblivion covered this terrible catastrophe on the day it happened. This is due to the fact that on the same day France surrendered to the Nazi troops, and Winston Churchill decided not to report anything about the death of the ship, as this could break the morale of the British. This is not surprising: the Lancaster disaster was the largest mass death of the British during the Second World War, the number of victims exceeded the sum of the victims of the death of the Titanic and Louisitania.
Liner "Lancastria" was built in 1920 and after the outbreak of the Second World War was operated as a military vessel. On June 17, he evacuated troops from Norway. The German bomber Junkers 88, which noticed the ship, began bombing. The liner was hit by 10 bombs. According to official figures, there were 4,500 soldiers and 200 crew members on board. About 700 people were saved. According to unofficial data published in Brian Crabb's book on the disaster, it is said that the number of victims is deliberately underestimated.
As a result of industrialization and development of industry at the beginning of the 20th century, large-scale construction of ships with large displacement on steam engines began in the leading countries of the world. Huge passenger ships were launched into the water, the capacity of which was measured in thousands of seats.
Steam engines allowed long-distance travel around the world. Replacing a wooden hull with a steel one made materials cheaper and stronger, thus providing shipbuilding with all the necessary resources. But despite the improvement in the quality of shipbuilding, ships sank no less than in the 18th or 19th century, only the scale of shipwrecks was more global due to the number of victims. This article will tell you about the biggest maritime disasters in history.
In 10th place in terms of the number of victims is the Kursk submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000. The reason is the explosion of a torpedo in the torpedo room, however, according to the unofficial version, the Kursk was attacked by the US Navy - the Memphis submarine. There is an opinion that the Russian government deliberately covered up the American attack in order to avoid international conflict. 118 people became victims. Nobody survived. 
The collision of the liner "Admiral Nakhimov"
9th place. Collision of the Soviet liner "Admiral Nakhimov" with the cargo ship "Pyotr Vasev" on August 31, 1986 in the Black Sea. Both captains were convicted. The captain of the ship "Pyotr Vasev", trusting in the system of automated radar plotting the course (CAD), did not change direction and speed until the critical distance from the "Admiral Nakhimov" was found. Another important factor is that the captains of the ships could not establish contact with each other before agreeing who should yield to whom. The cargo ship rammed a passenger steamer at an angle of 110 degrees. For 8 minutes, "Admiral Nakhimov" plunged under water. 423 crew members were killed. 
8th place is occupied by Novorossiysk, a Soviet battleship received by the USSR through reparations from the Italian navy. On October 29, 1955, the Novorossiysk ship was sunk by a mine in the Black Sea, however, there is a version classified by the Soviet Union, according to which the battleship exploded as a result of the actions of Italian sabotage groups. The Italian government did not want to leave the pride of the national fleet in the hands of the enemy, so they set up a diversion on the Novorossiysk. As a result of the disaster, 604 crew members died. 
In 7th place is the American ship Eastland, which sank on July 24, 1915 on Lake Michigan. The tourist ship was designed for 1,000 passengers, however, 2,500 tickets were sold on board. After the captain ordered to give up the mooring line, the ship slowly fell to starboard, the passengers began to panic. An overcrowded passenger ship fell to the port side, from an overflowing cargo in the form of an extra fifteen hundred passengers. 845 people died. According to a court decision, the mechanic was guilty, who unevenly filled the ballasts. 
6th place is occupied by the ferry "Estonia", which sank on September 28, 1994 in the Gulf of Finland. At 1:15 a.m., the ferry's bow visor came off, causing water to enter the cargo hold. In 35 minutes, "Estonia" completely sank. The victims of the tragedy were 852 people. 
Shipwreck of the steamer "Empress of Ireland"
On the 5th place is the shipwreck of the giant luxury steamer of the class "Empress of Ireland" which collided with a cargo ship filled with coal on May 29, 1914. The ship "Storstad" rammed a passenger liner to the starboard side at an angle of 35 degrees. The hole was five meters deep "Empress of Ireland". After the collision, the captain of the passenger ship shouted into the mouthpiece of the commander of the cargo ship: "Give full speed ahead," but the captain of the Storstad said: "The engines are running at full power in reverse, I can not do anything." A few minutes later, the cargo ship moved back, removing the bow from the side of the Express of Island, and water gushed through a hole with an area of 30 square meters. m. The ship sank. 1012 passengers died.
4th place is occupied by the disaster that occurred during the collision of the Titanic passenger liner with a huge ice block on April 14, 1912. The reason for the shipwreck is the lack of visibility and the imprudence of the captain, who ignored 7 ice warnings and ordered the ship to be put into full swing. 23:39 The watcher reported from the tower about the discovery of an iceberg right on the course. The captain ordered to deviate to the port side, thereby putting the starboard under attack. Through the hole, water began to flow into the compartments of the ship. Panic broke out on the ship, third-class passengers, who were in the lower compartments, could not find a way out of the narrow corridors. As a result of the crash, 1496 people died, 712 survivors were picked up by the steamer Carpathia passing by. 
On the 3rd place is the Yoola ferry, which sank off the coast of the Gambia on September 26, 2002. The cause of the crash is the overload of the vessel. The ship, designed for 580 passengers, accommodated more than 2,000 people. A strong gust of wind overturned the overloaded ferry. "Yoola" took 1863 people with her to the bottom. 
In 2nd place is the French warship Mont Blanc, which collided with the Norwegian ship Imo on December 6, 1917 in the port of Halifax. On board the Mont Blanc were 2,300 tons of the most powerful chemical explosives. A Norwegian ship rammed into the starboard side of a Frenchman, resulting in the most powerful explosion before the nuclear age. The port was completely destroyed by the explosion. 1963 people died, 2000 people went missing. 
The first place in the ranking of the most global maritime disasters is occupied by the Dona Paz ferry, which collided with an oil tanker on December 20, 1987. A major fire starts, most of the passengers, trapped in a fire trap, burned alive on the lower decks of the ship. Eighty tons of oil spilled into the sea and ignited. Both ships sank in 20 minutes. The reason is the inexperience of the sailor who operated the Dona Paz ferry, whose captain was watching TV in his cabin during a collision with an oil carrier. 4375 people died. 
