How Did The Titanic Sink
The Titanic was a luxury cruise liner owned by the White Star company. It was the biggest of its time and was said to be unsinkable. Unfortunately the Titanic tragically sunk on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City, United States. The Titanic had a total of 2,227 passengers and crew aboard at the time of her demise. 1,517 of these people perished when the ship sank making it the biggest and most catastrophic marine disaster in history.
How did the Titanic Sink?
Despite the fact that the Titanic had been designed and built with emergency bulkheads, she sunk in under 3 hours. Four days into her maiden voyage the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40pm on the 14th April 1912. This caused extensive damage along her starboard hull under the waterline. The impact buckled the hull and popped several rivets causing the forward compartments to flood with water. The watertight bulkheads sealed, but too many of the compartments were flooded for the ship to stay afloat. As the forward compartments filled with water the ship’s bow begun to sink causing more of the ship to become flooded. The weight of the water caused the bow to dip below the water line raising the stern out of the water displaying the propellers. Due to the incredible stress on the hull Titanic split in two all the way down to the hull. After which the bow began to sink further underwater dragging the stern with it.
Facts about the Titanic
- A mystery ship was spotted off the port side but no response was received from it
- The first lifeboat launched was Lifeboat 7 on the starboard side with 28 people on board out of a capacity of 65. It was lowered at around 00:40
- Collapsible D was the last lifeboat to be launched
- Only two of the 18 launched lifeboats rescued people after the ship sank
- The majority of deaths were caused by hypothermia in the 28 °F (-2 °C) water
- The last living survivor was Millvina Dean from England. Millvina was only nine weeks old at the time of the sinking and did not remember anything about that fateful night. She died on 31 May 2009, the 98th anniversary of the launching of Titanic’s hull.
- 15 April 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic
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