Tragedies are some of the saddening happenings in human life. Different generations have faced different tragedies. These range from wars, floods, outbreak of highly contagious diseases, slavery, drought and hunger, etc. Yet among all these tragedies, they are less remembered after strategies have been formulated to deal with them. However, there is one tragedy that would remain in the minds of many people and in the books of history for a long time. This is the Titanic Tragedy that occurred on the night of April 14, 1912. It involved the sinking of a British luxurious ship named Titanic.
The Titanic was a British ship that had been built with the state of the art technology that was available at that particular time. Therefore, it set sail from Southampton towards New York on April 10, 1992. However, four day later, the ship that had set out from England towards the United States of America was no more, having been sunk by an iceberg. The ship had a total of 2,223 people, with 899 as crew and 1,324 as passengers. The ship was also loaded with a lot of goods, most of them museum goods. Therefore, the tragic end of the Titanic brought to a sudden end of life, and high expectation that both the passengers and crew had towards the journey in such a luxurious ship.
-
0
Preparing Orders
-
0
Active Writers
-
0%
Positive Feedback
-
0
Support Agents
The actual accident of this ship occurred 450 miles from New York, i.e. its destination. There had been speculations as to the actual location where this ship sank. However, in 1985, scientists and researchers were able to locate the exact position where this massive ship had sunk using high-tech equipments. The actual location that is given is 490 56’ 49”W, 410 43’ 57”N in the Atlantic Ocean (Titanic-Titanic 2010). The Titanic disaster was caused by the fact that this ship was cruising at 22 knots in an area that was known for its amount of icebergs. The sinking of this ship was caused by the fact that it was unable to avoid colliding with an iceberg that caused serious damage to its airtight tanks.
In an effort to avoid colliding with the iceberg, the captain of this ship brought it to an abrupt standstill and tried to reverse the ship. However, it was too late for him and therefore the ship rammed into the iceberg. Due to these damages on the ship, it began sinking and as the damaged part was filled with water, it sank, raising the other part, a factor that caused the ship to break into two. This disaster caused an enormous amount of deaths that is known in history of maritime operations in the 20th century. According to Broad (1997) of the New York Times, out of the 2223 passengers that were on board the Titanic, only 706 people survived. Among these were 492 passengers and 214 crews. The captain of this ship did not survive. Similarly, the whole property that was on board was not rescued. This was as a result of the fact that the ship sank at an alarming rate giving no chance for salvaging property. This property is worth billions of dollars in today’s wealth.
The government of Britain and the Titanic company worked on different ways that it could use to compensate for the loss of both lives and property of its passengers and for the injuries that were caused to the survivors too. According to the New York Times (1913), the survivors sued Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Limited which was a company that was responsible for the Titanic, claiming $6,000,000. This would run into billions of money in today’s currency and state of the economy. Victims were also given different forms of help, especially by the government to enable them to heal the wounds in their hearts as a result of their losses. This form of help came in form of healthcare that mainly comprised of psychological help.
The Titanic disaster left a lot of effects on its survivors. Most of these survivors were affected psychologically, as they lived through the trauma of what they witnessed on that fateful night. Despite the aid they received from the government, most of the victims lived devastated lives as they were stressed due to the horrible sight they had stumbled upon and their near encounter with death. Most of them saw dead bodies of their fellow passengers. Most of the people who were involved did not live long after the tragedy, either due to injuries they had received or psychological stress that made it difficult for them to live with such memories (New York Times 1919).
There are different tragedies that have occurred in the history of mankind during the 20th century. However, of notable memory is the Titanic, a luxury ship that sank killing more than 1,500 people while leaving behind victims who were traumatized never to live their lives to the fullest again. The amount of property that was lost in this tragedy was immeasurable as nothing could be salvaged due to the speed at which this vessel sank. Similarly, the technology at that particular time could not provide sufficient mechanism for operations to be carried out to salvage property. In fact, the actual area where the Titanic sank was discovered in 1985, more than 70 years after the sinking of this ship.