This past week, a salvage operation was underway for the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship which capsized off the coast of Italy in January of 2012, killing 32 people.
As tragic as the incident was, though, the Costa Concordia was nowhere near the biggest shipwreck in history.In terms of loss of life, the Wilhelm Gustloff is believed to be the biggest disaster ever. The German transport ship was sunk by a Russian submarine in January, 1945, near the end of World War II. Over 9,000 people died.
That’s about six times as many people as died on the Titanic, where the loss of life was around 1,500. And speaking of the Titanic, it is often thought to be the largest ship that’s ever sunk, but it’s not. The Titanic was just under 900 feet long. But the Seawise Giant was a tanker that was more than 1,500 feet long. It sunk in the Strait of Hormuz in 1988 during the Iraq-Iran war. Amazingly, the ship was later salvaged, repaired and sailed again.
Other shipwrecks have occurred as a result of exploration, rather than warfare. The Endurance was a wooden sailing ship that set out to explore Antarctica in 1915 with 28 men onboard. The boat was crushed by ice and sank. Thankfully, the crew survived. And now many scientists believe the wreckage may have survived as well, preserved under the ice thanks to the chilly ocean water.The Costa Concordia wreckage, in contrast, has already started to decay. But the wreckage does hold one costly distinction: it will cost around $800 million to remove, making it the most expensive salvage operation ever.
