Maritime Accident News

Deadliest Shipwrecks of the 20th Century Recalled

Houston’s online website, chron.com, reports that even though the recent grounding of the Costa Concordia was a terrible disaster, there have been many horrible ship accidents in the twentieth century. 

When the 1904 excursion boat, General Slocum, caught fire the East River of New York City, panic took over and 1,300 mostly German immigrants perished. Until September 11, 2011, it was the worst disaster ever to occur in New York.

The April 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic is, perhaps the most famous of all shipwreck disasters. On its maiden voyage from England to New York City, this “unsinkable” ship hit an iceberg and sank. 2,201 people were aboard and only 710 survived. 

In 1914, the RMS Empress of Ireland collided with another ship, then sank in the Saint Lawrence River. The ship, struck in the midsection by a Norwegian collier SS Storstad, claimed 1, 012 lives.

An official death toll of 1,565 and an unofficial estimate of over 4,000 makes the December 20, 1987 wreck of the MV Dona Paz another of the world’s most deadly ship disasters. The ship collided with another off the coast of the Philippines, caught fire, then sank. The MV Dona Paz was said to be overloaded with passengers not recorded on the manifest. Only 21 survived.

And, as recently as 2006, the passenger ship, Al Salam Boccaccio 98, sank 40 miles from the Hurghada port of Egypt, killing all but 388 of its 1,300 passengers. 

The Houston maritime legal team at Vujasinovic & Beckcom offers the victims of the most recent Costa Concordia tragedy and their survivors their deepest sympathies.

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