Was the Titanic disaster a natural disaster?

Shipwreck on the Ice Sea April 14, 1912, Sunday night, a calm night with no wind at all. If anything, the crew would have noticed specks of phosphorescence from the waves crashing on the iceberg. The Titanic sailed at a speed of 22.3 knots on this dark and cold ocean. After receiving reports of ice conditions from many nearby ships, Captain Smith ordered the lookouts to observe carefully. Because of the mild winter this year, the icebergs drifted further south than in previous years. However, the crew of the Titanic forgot to bring telescopes, so the lookouts had to observe with the naked eye. At 23:40, lookout Frederick Fleet (who later survived) spotted a black shadow in the distance "the size of two tables" that grew in size very quickly. He rang the alarm bell on the bridge three times and picked up the phone: "There is an iceberg directly ahead!". Sixth Officer Moody answered the phone and informed First Officer Murdoch who was standing next to him. Murdoch ordered to slow down, full port rudder, stop the ship and reverse. This turned out to be the stupidest decision. The best option at that time was to slow down and hit the iceberg with a strong bow. On that cold night in April 1912, the Titanic and the iceberg had a kiss of death. Thirteen hours ago, telegraph operator Philip was receiving a weaker radio signal from Canada, and telegraph operator Elise of the nearby Californian sent a telegram to the Titanic. The Californian's telegram was so loud that it threatened to deafen Philip's eardrums, so he cut off the telegram, even though it was about the iceberg. At the same time, Elis entered the wrong format and forgot to add MEG. After sending it once, he went to bed. The iceberg hit the hull, causing the rivets on the bottom of the ship to be unable to withstand the impact and were destroyed. When it was originally manufactured, it was considered that the material used for the rivets would be fragile. Slag was added during the manufacturing process of the rivets, but the slag was too densely distributed, making the rivets fragile and unable to survive. Withstand the impact (the pressure the rivets withstood when impacting was about 10,044 pounds at that time). After the rivet broke, seawater poured into the watertight compartment. However, the maximum withstand limit of the Titanic's watertight compartment at that time was 4, and the water-filled part was more than 5 Withstand the limit. The results of this collision became known later. But the passengers and crew on the ship had mixed reactions. Some half-sleeping passengers in first and second class were awakened by a slight scraping sound of metal. The ship's hull shook slightly. Some people thought they had encountered big waves, some thought they had hit a rock, and still others thought the propeller had malfunctioned. But passengers in the cabin below felt the shaking much more violently. Some passengers saw milky white icebergs passing by outside the port window. Some of the scraped ice fell into the cabin. The immigrant passengers in the steerage cabin on the ground floor were even more horrified to find that the cold and biting sea water was flowing through the crack of the door from an unknown place. The ship soon stopped. Some passengers put on their coats and came on deck. The stars twinkled over the North Atlantic, and the temperature dropped to minus one degree. Under the dark sky, a warm yellowish light shines from the windows of the Titanic. Four tall yellow and black chimneys billowed with white steam smoke. Suddenly, three of them let out a deafening roar and hiss. Passengers who know steam engines know that this is the boiler safety valve on the ship releasing excess superheated high-pressure steam. Captain Smith was notified and inspected the damage together with Thomas Andrew, chief naval architect of the Harlan 6 Wolfe Company. The five forward compartments were flooded with seawater. The water seemed to be flowing across H deck in an orderly manner. In the dim light of the mail bay, packages of mail floated on the water. After checking all the watertight compartments, Andrew calmly said to Captain Smith: "This ship is hopeless." Captain Smith asked how much time was left, and the answer was one hour, two hours at most. What happened next is already clear to everyone. At 0:05 a.m. on the 15th, Captain Smith ordered to prepare to launch the lifeboat. At 0:15, the Titanic sent a distress signal "CQD MGY". CQD was the common distress signal at the time, and MGY was the Titanic's radio call code. Soon after, the SOS distress signal, newly identified by the International Maritime Association, was sent. Many ships in the Atlantic received distress telegrams. The Canadian Pacific Company's Temple Mount, the Cunard Company's Capesia, the Russian cargo ship Burma, as well as the Frankfurt, Virginia, and Olympic... were all speeding towards the scene of the accident. The exception was that the transceiver and receiver of the tramp passenger ship Californian, which was just 18 nautical miles away, had turned off the telegraph machine and went to sleep. The ship had been trapped by ice floes for nearly a day. Nothing major happened on the ship all night, and it seemed that nothing major would happen. At 0:45, the first lifeboat was lowered. The first distress rocket was launched from the ship. A sheet of shining white sparks slowly fell. At 0:55, the bow of the Titanic was submerged in the water. The work beside the lifeboats was chaotic. Although the virtue of women and children (women and children in first class and second class cabins) boarding the lifeboats first was observed, many lifeboats were lowered in mid-empty state. However, this cannot be blamed on the crew. The sailing community at the time believed that if the lifeboat was lowered with a full load of people, it would cause damage or even capsize. The Titanic's lifeboats were designed to be strong, but the crew didn't know this. As a result, only 651 people got on the lifeboat that could carry 1,178 people (some people were rescued on the lifeboat after jumping into the sea). On the port side of the ship, lifeboats carried women and children.

On the starboard side, men are allowed to board the boat after women escape first. Therefore, more people were rescued on the starboard side than on the port side. By 1:40, the last foldable lifeboat was lowered to the sea. The band on the ship accompanied the passengers, using music to comfort these people who were destined to die dozens of minutes later, and played until the last moment. Faced with the choice of life and death, some people choose to die like a gentleman. The rich man Guggenheim put on an evening dress and said, "Even if you die, you must die like a gentleman." Mrs. Evans, of Denver, gave up her lifeboat seat to a mother of one, while White Star Chairman Ismay jumped into the lifeboat at the last minute, abandoning his passengers, his crew, and his ship. The good and evil of human nature are fully exposed here. As more and more water poured into the front of the ship, the stern gradually left the water and tilted high. At 1:35 a.m., seawater entered the boiler room. At 2:10, Phillips, who had been sticking to his post, sent his last telegram for help. At 2:13, the 29 large boilers on the ship left their bases one after another, collided with each other, broke through watertight walls, and opened a large hole in the bow of the ship, falling into the sea water. At 2:17, seawater poured into the central power control room, causing a short circuit and the lights on the entire ship went out. At 2:18, with a huge cracking sound, the Titanic's hull was broken into two parts between the third and fourth chimneys. At 2:20, the bow part of the ship sank into the sea, and the rear half smashed back into the sea. Within a minute, the front half of the Titanic sank into the water. 1,523 passengers and crew went with it. Although many passengers escaped from the ship, they were sucked into the sea when the ship sank because they failed to get on the lifeboats, or died of hypothermia after soaking in the cold water. The bodies of many passengers could not be recovered. They were probably trapped in the cabin and drowned alive. People who fell into the water quickly lost consciousness. What awaits them is rapid loss of body temperature, nerve paralysis and death. The people in the lifeboats were also half frozen to death. Some people relied solely on their strong will to hold on to the capsized lifeboat No. 2 while half-body was immersed in the freezing water. It was not until 3:30 that the Cunard Company's passenger ship Carpathia arrived at the scene of the accident first. At 4 o'clock, the crew of the Carpathia spotted the first lifeboat in the dim light of dawn in the North Atlantic. The rescue work continued until 8:30 in the morning, when lifeboat No. 12 was attached to the rescue cable. Of the 2,208 crew and passengers on the Titanic, only 705 survived. The captain and chaplain of the Carpathia presided over a memorial service in the great dining room. At 8:50, we turned around and returned to New York. On April 18, the Carpathia arrived in New York Harbor. Tens of thousands of people watched on the Battery Shores of Manhattan Island as they passed the Statue of Liberty. At Pier 54, about 30,000 people stood in the rain and silently greeted the survivors of the Titanic. News of the sinking of the Titanic shocked the entire Western world. People were shocked at that time, no less than the 9.11 incident in the United States this century. Flags were flown at half-mast in many places on both sides of the Atlantic. King George V of the United Kingdom and President Taft of the United States exchanged messages of condolence. Kaiser Wilhelm II also sent a telegram of condolence. The consequences and impact of the shipwreck: The Titanic is the product of mankind's beautiful dreams reaching their peak, reflecting mankind's strong self-confidence in controlling the world. Her sinking demonstrated to mankind the mysterious power of nature and the unpredictability of fate. By the time the Titanic sank, people in the Western world had enjoyed stability and peace for 100 years. Science and technology are advancing steadily, industry is developing rapidly, and people are full of confidence in the future. The sinking of the Titanic shook all this up. The "unsinkable ship" - the largest man-made steel structure after the Eiffel Tower and a great achievement of the industrial age - sank on its first voyage because of its indifference to the power of nature. The Titanic will forever serve as a reminder of the cost of human arrogance. People will never forget this picture: the Titanic holds its head high on the bottom of the sea, and its dilapidation and stains cannot conceal her nobility. This is where she belongs. This is how history turned into legend. This disaster shocked the international community. Because it proved to some people that people and their technological achievements cannot compare with the power of nature. The steelmaking technology at that time was not very mature, and the steel produced could not be used for shipbuilding by modern standards. The steel plates used on the Titanic contained many chemical impurities, zinc sulfide, and were soaked in cold seawater for a long time, making the steel plates even more fragile. On the other hand, the Titanic impact diagram is inconsistent with public thinking: there are many opinions on the form of the Titanic's sinking. Including the whole ship sinking; the hull folded in the middle near the second and third chimneys, and then each sank vertically; the hull folded in the middle near the third and fourth chimneys, and then the forward hull part dragged the stern, and the stern sank vertically. . Until September 1, 1985, when the famous scientist Ballard found the wreckage of the Titanic in the waters about 380 miles southeast of Newfoundland, including the bow part of the first two chimneys and the stern part after the fourth chimney. Preliminary proof of the third theory. This theory was later experienced in the movie "Titanic" directed by James 6?1 Cameron. At that time, everyone believed that since the hull part of the third chimney had been blown to pieces, this part would never be found.

However, in August 2005, an archaeological team sponsored by History Channel found the hull part 500 meters behind the stern wreckage. The wreckage was about 12 meters by 27 meters, and the red paint on the bottom of the ship was still clearly visible. This discovery overturns the "double cut theory" of the past 20 years. Scientists believe that the Titanic sank after breaking into three parts. Even a century later, several absurd theories about the Titanic and her sinking still exist. One is: her rudder was too small. A larger rudder would have avoided this disaster. A larger rudder might have saved her, as her rudder was not legally small for the size of the ship at the time. In fact, according to today's regulations for ships, the size of the Titanic's rudder is still qualified. Another way to put it is: There were not enough lifeboats on the Titanic. In fact, the number of lifeboats she had was in compliance with British law, which stipulated that the number of lifeboats was not based on the number of passengers but on the tonnage of the ship. All ships at the time had far fewer lifeboats than were needed. The purpose of the lifeboats at that time was not to carry all passengers; they were only used to transfer passengers from one sinking ship to another rescue ship. on board. At that time, the internationally accepted maritime safety rules were that the number of people in a lifeboat on a passenger ship should be one-third of the total number of people on the ship, and the lifeboat on the Titanic could carry half of the passengers. White Star Company also provided this kind of "high safety for passengers" It feels unfair that the additional configuration of "responsible" has not attracted public attention. The sinking of the Titanic permanently changed this life-saving strategy. After the sinking of the Titanic, new maritime safety regulations were enacted. The requirements for a lifeboat are simple: it must be able to accommodate everyone on board. All shipping companies have quickly carried out transformation work in accordance with the new requirements. In fact, even if she had more lifeboats to carry all the passengers, it would still be possible not to ensure that more people would be rescued because the crew would not have time to lower all the lifeboats while she was sinking. ! Another theory is that the crew of the mechanical crew insisted on their posts until the end. A book published in 1988 also mentioned this and made it immortal. The fact is that the machinery room was flooded at 1:15 AM. In the final moments of the sinking, the mechanics and furnace workers stood on the stern deck along with hundreds of other people, trapped on the ship without any hope of rescue. According to expert analysis, the people trapped in the stern of the ship imploded due to water pressure about ten minutes after the ship sank to the bottom of the sea, or were immediately crushed to death by the water or the hull, or suffocated to death.