Shipwrecks Since 1833

1833

May 11, Lady of the Lake: bound from England to Quebec, struck iceberg; 215 perished.

1853

Sept. 29, Annie Jane: emigrant vessel wrecked off coast of Scotland; 348 died.

1860

Sept. 8, Lady Elgin: steamer was hit by schooner Augusta, killing more than 300.

1865

April 27, Sultana: boiler explosion on Mississippi River steamboat, near Memphis; 1,547 killed. Most of the dead were Union POWs finally heading home at the end of the Civil War.

1873

April 1, Atlantic: sank near Halifax after hitting rocks, killing 562.

1878

Sept. 3, Princess Alice: collided with the steam collier Bywell Castle and sank in the Thames, killing at least 600, actual numbers unknown.

1898

Feb. 15, Maine: U.S. battleship destroyed in Havana harbor by an explosion that killed 260 men. The incident led to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898.

Nov. 26, City of Portland: 157 died near Cape Cod.

1904

June 15, General Slocum: excursion steamer burned in East River, N.Y.; 1,021 perished.

1912

March 5, Principe de Asturias: Spanish steamer struck rock off Sebastien Point; 500 drowned.

April 15, Titanic: supposedly unsinkable British ocean liner went down on maiden voyage after colliding with an iceberg. More than 1,500 people died.

Sept. 28, Kichemaru: Japanese steamer sunk off Japan; killing 1000.

1914

May 29, Empress of Ireland: sank after collision in St. Lawrence River; 1,014 perished.

1915

May 7, Lusitania: British luxury liner was sunk off Irish coast by a German submarine; 1195 died.

1915

July 24, Eastland: Great Lakes excursion steamer overturned in Chicago River; 812 died.

1916

Feb. 26, Provence: French cruiser sank in Mediterranean; 3,100 perished.

Nov. 21, Britannic: sister ship of the Titanic sank in the Aegean Sea after an explosion. The vessel, which had been converted to a hospital ship during World War I, probably collided with an underwater mine. Of the more than 1,100 people aboard, only 30 died.

Aug. 29, Hsin Yu: Chinese steamer sunk; 1,000 died.

1928

Nov. 12, Vestris: British steamer sank in gale off Va.; 110 died.

1934

Sept. 8, Morro Castle: 134 killed in fire off Asbury Park, N.J.

1939

May 23, Squalus: submarine with 59 men sank off Hampton Beach, N.H.; 33 saved.

June 1, Thetis: submarine sank in Liverpool Bay, England; 99 perished.

1945

Jan. 30, Wilhelm Gustloff: cruise ship carrying German refugees and soldiers sunk by Soviet submarine in Baltic. It is thought that as many as 10,000 people were aboard, of which only about 900 survived.

1949

Sept. 17, Noronic: Canadian Great Lakes cruise ship burned at Toronto dock; about 130 died.

1952

April 26, Hobson: minesweeper collided with aircraft carrier Wasp and sank during night maneuvers in mid-Atlantic; 176 people lost.

1953

Jan. 9, Chang Tyong-Ho: South Korean ferry foundered off Pusan; 249 reported dead.

Jan. 31, Princess Victoria: British ferry sank in Irish Sea; 133 lost.

1954

Sept. 26, Toya Maru: more than 1,000 killed when commercial ferry sank in Tsugaru Strait, Japan.

1956

July 25, Andrea Doria: Italian liner collided with Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket Island, Mass., and sank the next day. 51 people died.

1962

April 8, Dara: British liner exploded and sank in Persian Gulf; 236 dead. Caused by time bomb.

1963

April 10, Thresher: atomic-powered U.S. submarine sank in North Atlantic; 129 dead.

May 4: United Arab Republic ferry capsized and sank in upper Nile; over 200 died.

1966

Dec. 12, Heraklion: Greek passenger ferry foundered in heavy seas near Crete; 241 dead.

1968

Jan. 25, Dakar: Israeli submarine sank in eastern Mediterranean, probably after collision with large ship; 69 dead.

Late May, Scorpion: U.S. nuclear submarine sank in Atlantic 400 mi southwest of Azores; 99 dead.

1970

Dec. 15: ferry in Korean Strait capsized; 261 lost.

1975

Nov. 10, Edmund Fitzgerald: cargo vessel carrying 26,000 long tons of iron ore pellets sank in eastern Lake Superior; all 29 crew lost.

1976

Oct. 20, George Prince: Mississippi River ferry rammed by Norwegian tanker Frosta near Luling, La.; 77 dead.

1983

May 25, 10th of Ramadan: Nile steamer caught fire and sank in Lake Nasser, near Aswan, Egypt; 272 dead and 75 missing.

1987

March 6, Herald of Free Enterprise: British ferry capsized after leaving Belgian port of Zeebrugge with 500 aboard; 134 drowned. Water rushing through bow left open was the cause.

Dec. 20, Dona Paz: over 4,000 killed when passenger ferry collided with oil tanker Victor off Mindoro Is., south of Manila, Philippines.

1990

April 7, Scandinavian Star: suspected arson aboard Danish-owned North Sea ferry killed at least 110 passengers in Skagerrak Strait off Norway.

April 7: double-decker ferry sank in Gyaing River in Myanmar (Burma) during a storm and 215 people were believed drowned.

1991

Dec. 15, Salem Express: ferry carrying 569 passengers sank in Red Sea off coast of Safaga, Egypt, after hitting a coral reef. Over 460 people believed drowned.

1993

Feb. 17, Neptune: triple-deck ferry capsized off southern peninsula of Haiti during a squall. Over 1,000 passengers believed drowned. About 300 survived the sinking.

1994

Sept. 28, Estonia: passenger ferry capsized off coast of southwest Finland and sank in a stormy Baltic Sea. Only about 140 of the estimated 1,040 passengers aboard survived.

1996

Jan. 21, Gurita: overloaded ferry sank off the coast of northern Sumatra, killing 340.

1999

Feb., Harta Rimba: ship sank in the South China Sea, killing about 325 people. The ship had not been licensed for passenger use.

Nov. 24, Dashun: ferry carrying more than 300 passengers sank after catching fire. More than 150 confirmed dead, with another 140 missing.

2000

June 29, Cahaya Bahari: ferry carrying refugees sank about 40 mi off Sulawesi, killing the 492 people aboard.

Aug. 12, Kursk: Russian nuclear submarine sank to bottom of Barents Sea following an explosion; 118 dead.

2001

Feb. 9, Ehime Maru: U.S. submarine Greeneville collided with Japanese fishing boat near Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 26 people aboard the Ehime Maru were rescued; 9 others were presumed dead.

2002

Sept. 26, Joola: overloaded Senegalese ferry capsized off the coast of Gambia, drowning 1,863 people. Only 64 passengers were rescued.

2006

Feb. 3, Red Sea: a fire on the al-Salam Boccaccio 98, a Red Sea ferry, enroute from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, caused it to sink 60 miles off the Egyptian coast, killing more than 1,000.

See also:
The Sultana
The Titanic
The Endurance
The Lusitania
The Andrea Doria

Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

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