14. Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River in sight of land
RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Empress of Ireland was in the process of beginning its 96th crossing of the Atlantic in May, 1914 when it collided in foggy conditions with a Norwegian freighter near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. The two ships had sighted each other earlier, before the fog engulfed them, and had remained in communication through the use of their ship’s whistles, but the Norwegian vessel nonetheless struck the passenger ship amidships, cutting a gash in the side. The passenger’s vessel was equipped with watertight doors, but they required the crew to shut them manually, and the ship flooded too quickly for the crew to respond in time. There were 1,477 passengers and crew aboard, 1,012 of them died as the ship went down.
Empress of Ireland was upgraded to include new safety procedures and equipment following the loss of Titanic two years earlier, but many of them were ignored as the vessel approached the open sea. Numerous portholes, some just above the waterline, had been left open to allow for ventilation, and the watertight doors were open throughout the ship. The flooding following the collision was so severe that the ship capsized in less than fifteen minutes, and sank quickly, without enough time to load most of the lifeboats, of which there were enough to accommodate all passengers aboard. Most of those who were not drowned by the water flooding the vessel died of hypothermia in the waters of St. Lawrence. Survivors from the crew outnumbered those from the passengers.
