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Throughout recorded time, maritime disasters have claimed countless lives in shocking and sometimes bizarre circumstances.
From the infamous sinking of the Titanic to lesser-known tragedies like the capsizing of the SS Eastland.
These catastrophes showcase the perils of the sea and the deadly consequences of human error, negligence and hubris.
The RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people due to insufficient lifeboats and cold water temperatures.
Shockingly, the ship's band continued playing as the vessel sank, and some wealthy passengers like Isidor and Ida Straus chose to go down with the ship rather than separate.
The USS Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in July 1945, resulting in the greatest single loss of life at sea in U.S. Navy history.
Many of the nearly 900 sailors who initially survived the sinking were killed by shark attacks as they waited four days to be rescued, with only 316 ultimately surviving the ordeal.
On December 20, 1987, the passenger ferry MV Doña Paz collided with an oil tanker in the Philippines, resulting in the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history with an estimated 4,385 fatalities.
Incredibly, the ship was severely overcrowded with possibly 4,000 passengers instead of its official capacity of 1,518. Reports indicated the crew was drinking beer or watching television when the collision occurred.
The ship also lacked basic safety equipment like a radio and accessible life jackets.
The Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster in 2012 resulted in 32 deaths after the captain deviated from the planned route and struck a rock off the coast of Italy, causing the ship to partially sink.
The captain abandoned ship before all passengers were evacuated and had to be ordered by the Coast Guard to return, with the now-famous command "Get back on board, damn it!" (Vada a bordo, cazzo!).
The Exxon Valdez oil spill, which occurred on March 24, 1989 in Alaska's Prince William Sound, released approximately 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil, causing widespread environmental damage and becoming the second largest oil spill in US waters.
The ship's captain, Joseph Hazelwood, who was accused of being drunk at the time, was initially acquitted of major charges and only convicted of a misdemeanor.
The oil tanker itself was later renamed multiple times and continued to operate until 2012 when it was finally dismantled.
The MS Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea on September 28, 1994, killing 852 people in one of the deadliest maritime disasters in European waters.
The ship sank in just one hour, survivors were mostly young males with strong constitutions, and a 4-meter hole was later discovered in the ship's hull, leading to speculation about a possible collision with a submarine.
The SS Eastland, a passenger ship in Chicago, capsized while still moored to its dock in 1915, resulting in the tragic deaths of 844 passengers and crew—the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
The disaster inadvertently saved the life of 20-year-old George Halas, future founder of the NFL and coach of the Chicago Bears, who arrived late and missed boarding the doomed vessel.
The Wilhelm Gustloff, originally a Nazi cruise ship turned military transport, was torpedoed and sunk by a Soviet submarine on January 30, 1945, resulting in the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history with an estimated 9,400 people killed.
The ship's complement included not only German civilians and military personnel fleeing the advancing Red Army, but also victims of Nazi aggression from various nationalities.
The sinking was carried out by a submarine captain who was facing a court martial for alcohol problems and visiting a brothel.
The RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915, killing 1,197 people and helping turn American public opinion against Germany in World War I.
Conspiracy theories emerged claiming the British deliberately put the ship in danger to draw the US into the war, while German propaganda medals were created celebrating the sinking, which were then reproduced by the British for their own propaganda purposes.
On June 22, 1893, HMS Victoria, the flagship of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, sank after colliding with HMS Camperdown during a fleet maneuver, resulting in the loss of 358 crew members including Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.
The wreck was discovered in 2004 standing vertically with her bow buried in the mud and her stern pointing towards the surface. A position attributed to her heavy forward turret and still-turning propellers driving the ship downwards as she sank.
On December 6, 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc, laden with high explosives, collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in Halifax Harbour, causing a massive explosion that devastated the city of Halifax.
The blast was the largest human-made explosion prior to nuclear weapons, releasing energy equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of TNT and creating a tsunami that wiped out an entire Mi'kmaq settlement.
It also caused an estimated 9,000 injuries including 5,900 eye injuries, with flying glass blinding 41 people permanently.
On March 6, 1987, the MS Herald of Free Enterprise ferry capsized moments after leaving the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, killing 193 passengers and crew.
The ship left harbor with its bow doors wide open because the responsible crew member was asleep in his cabin, and the vessel capsized within 90 seconds of water entering the car deck due to a design flaw that allowed flooding to spread rapidly throughout the ship.
The Sultana, a steamboat carrying over 2,100 passengers (mostly Union soldiers) despite a capacity of only 376, exploded and sank on the Mississippi River in April 1865, killing an estimated 1,167 people in the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history.
Incredibly, this tragedy was largely overlooked at the time due to Abraham Lincoln's assassination just days earlier.
No one was ever held accountable for the disaster despite evidence of overcrowding, faulty boiler repairs, and possible bribery.
The MV Sewol ferry disaster in South Korea on April 16, 2014 resulted in the deaths of 304 passengers, including around 250 high school students, when the overloaded and improperly modified ship capsized after a sudden turn.
The ship's crew told passengers to stay in their cabins as the ferry sank, and the captain was among the first to abandon ship, leaving hundreds trapped inside.
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