Deadliest Incidents In History

MV Doña Paz Ferry Disaster — Philippines

The deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history: an overloaded ferry collided with an oil tanker and burned.

Sinking of the RMS Titanic — United Kingdom

The Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage; about 1,500 died, largely because lifeboat capacity was less than half the people aboard.

Junyo Maru disaster

La Herradura naval disaster

The La Herradura Naval Disaster took place on October 19, 1562 in the bay of La Herradura, Almuñécar, Spain. A major storm sank 25 ships out of a fleet of 28 sheltering in the bay, and some 5,000 people were drowned. King Philip II of Spai

Fleetwreck at Bornholm 1678 — Denmark

Sinking of the "Rigel" — Norway

Awa Maru incident — China

sinking of the RMS Titanic

RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic was four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States, with over 2,200 people o

Shipwreck outside Visby 1566 — Denmark

sinking of the RMS Lusitania — United Kingdom

RMS Lusitania was a British-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about 11 nautical miles (20 kilometres; 13 miles) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland (then p

Tōya Maru disaster — Japan

Tōya Maru (洞爺丸) was a Japanese train ferry constructed by Japanese National Railways (JNR) which sank during Typhoon Marie, known locally as the Tōya Maru Typhoon, in the Tsugaru Strait between the Japanese islands of Hokkaidō and Honshū on

1904 General Slocum maritime disaster — United States

sinking of the SS Tanais — Greece

Quebec Expedition — Canada

The Quebec expedition, or the Walker expedition to Quebec, was a British attempt to attack Quebec in 1711 in Queen Anne's War, the North American theatre of the War of Spanish Succession. It failed when seven transports and one storeship w

sinking of the MS Estonia — Sweden

MS Estonia, a cruiseferry operated by Estline, sank on Wednesday, 28 September 1994, between about 00:50 and 01:50 CEST (UTC+2) as the ship was crossing the Baltic Sea, en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden. The vessel was ca

Eastland disaster — United States

Struma disaster — Turkey

The Struma disaster was the sinking on 24 February 1942 of the ship MV Struma which had been trying to take nearly 800 Jewish refugees from the Axis member Romania to Mandatory Palestine. She was a small iron-hulled ship of only 240 GRT and

sinking of the Ertuğrul — Japan

Sinking of Dongfang zhi Xing — China

MV Dongfang zhi Xing (Chinese: 东方之星; pinyin: Dōngfāng zhī Xīng; translated as Oriental Star or Eastern Star) was a river cruise ship that operated in the Three Gorges region of inland China. On the night of 1 June 2015, the ship was traveli

sinking of the Van Imhoff

sinking of Tōyo Maru No. 10 — Japan

sinking of the SS Japan — Japan

2013 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck — Italy

On 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. It was reported that the boat had sailed from Misrata, Libya, but that many of the migrants were originally from Eritrea, Somalia and

sinking of Sekirei Maru — Japan

sinking of the MV Sewol — South Korea

On the morning of Wednesday, 16 April 2014, the ferry MV Sewol sank while en route from Incheon towards Jeju City in South Korea. The 6,825-ton vessel sent a distress signal from about 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi; 1.5 nmi) north of Byeongpungdo

SS Arctic disaster — United States

SS Arctic, an American paddle steamer owned by the Collins Line, sank on September 27, 1854, 50 miles (80 km) off the coast of Newfoundland after a collision with SS Vesta, a much smaller French vessel. Passenger and crew lists indicate tha

Sinking of F174 — Italy

The sinking of the ship F174 took place on the night of December 24-25, 1996, off the coast of Sicily, in the Mediterranean Sea. The Yiohan, severely overloaded steel ⁸ship transporting illegal immigrants from India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan

Sinking of the Da Shun

Patria disaster — Israel

The Patria disaster was the sinking on 25 November 1940 by the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah of a French-built ocean liner, the 11,885-ton SS Patria, in the port of Haifa. Patria was about to depart with about 1,800 Jewish refug

Bocaue Pagoda Tragedy — Philippines

The Bocaue pagoda tragedy was a fatal accident that occurred on July 2, 1993, during the Bocaue Pagoda Festival in Bocaue, Bulacan, Philippines. The accident was the result of the festivities' centerpiece – a floating pagoda – sinking, whic

sinking of the SS Ville-du-Havre

West Ice accidents — Norway

The West Ice accidents (Ulykkene i Vestisen) occurred around 5 April 1952 when the five Norwegian seal hunting vessels Ringsel, Brattind and Vårglim from Troms and Buskøy and Pels from Sunnmøre with a total crew of 78 men vanished in the m