Costa Concordia disaster, the capsizing of an Italian cruise ship on January 13, 2012, after it struck rocks off the coast of Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Helicopters were used to rescue most of the 137 survivors. NATO's "Search & Rescue" Exercise Although it is seldom mentioned, the Estonia catastrophe occurred on the first day of a 10-day NATO naval exercise called Cooperative Venture 94, in which more than 15 ships and "a number of maritime aircraft" were prepared to conduct "humanitarian and search and rescue operations" in nearby waters. A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor's website. Most passengers on board the ship were trapped … New evidence emerges in Europe’s worst peacetime maritime disaster - the sinking of MS Estonia in 1994 The passenger ferry MS Estonia in the docks in Tallinn. The foreign ministers of Finland, Estonia and Sweden have agreed to jointly assess new evidence regarding the 1994 sinking of the cruise ship M/S Estonia. At the time of the incident, the ship was carrying 989 people, of … If you have questions about your account, please The MS Estonia sinking occurred in the year 1994 in the month of September as the vessel was passing through the Baltic Sea from the Estonian province of Tallinn to her intended destination of Stockholm. People were stunned. Official death toll: 1,517 When she first set sail, the Titanic was the largest ship afloat. The sinking of the MS Estonia ferry in 1994 affected all of Estonia and Sweden. But now, after Swedish journalist Henrik Evertsson incorporated new footage of the ferry wreckage into a new documentary, the question of what sank the ferry has been reopened. Citizens of seventeen nations died when the MS Estonia capsized. Ted Williams once said it was his goal in life to “walk down the street [and have] folks say ‘there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.’” He ...read more, On September 28, 1542, the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrives in San Diego Bay while searching for the Strait of Anian, a mythical all-water route across North America. “Even for those of us not directly affected, it was a traumatic episode to live through. The Christian Science Monitor has expired. It was especially devastating to the two countries with the most people on board: Estonia and Sweden, who lost 285 and 501 citizens respectively. News Sweden aims to allow probe into deadly 1994 Estonia ferry disaster. A majority of the victims were high school students; over 250 of them drowned in the incident. You can renew your subscription or The effect of the film, as well as the furor it caused, was immediate. On September 28, 1994, 852 people die in one of the worst maritime disasters of the century when the Estonia, a large car-and-passenger ferry, sinks in the The Estonian-flagged Ro-Ro passenger ferry Estonia had left Tallinn, Estonia, on 27 September 1994, planned to arrive at Stockholm, Sweden, carrying 989 people, 803 of whom were passengers.. India's apparently lower death rates stands in contrast to what has been seen elsewhere. It’s engraved in my memory forever.”. Read more. Find flights to Estonia from $284. At the time of the MS Estonia disaster nearly 1,000 people were aboard it, both voyagers and crewing personnel included and only a minuscule proportion of people were managed to be successfully saved from the wreckage of the unfortunate vessel. More than 4,200 people were rescued, though 32 people died. The incident. However, there were others, including some family and friends of the Estonia victims, who believed the sinking was the result of a pre-existing hole caused by a collision or explosion. Science Monitor has expired. ... “Death on this scale was a cataclysm that deeply shook people in both countries. This correspondent reported on the tragedy for The New York Times in Helsinki, and later in Turku, the Finnish city nearest the sinking, where the haggard, too few survivors from the MS Estonia were helicoptered in, along with Stephen Kinzer, the Times’ Berlin bureau chief who anchored the paper’s coverage. A 1997 investigation found that the ship's bow door locks had failed in a storm. The 15,000-ton steel vessel, 510 feet long and … In the meantime, the Swedish government indicted Mr. Evertsson for trespassing on the MS Estonia site, for which he faces up to two years in prison. An angel with a cross. The littoral combat ship Gabrielle Giffords interdicted more than $100 million worth of cocaine from a "low-profile vessel" Dec. 5 in the Pacific Ocean. Estonia's immigration quota – referring to the number of people permitted to enter Estonia for work and study from non-EU/EEA countries, as well as a few other countries such as the U.S. and Japan – was set at 1,314 for 2020, but by the first week of the year this had already been exceeded by well over 100, with 1,378 applications. The S.S. Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. The sinking of the MS Estonia passenger ferry in the early hours of Sept. 28, 1994, under mysterious circumstances in the Baltic Sea, is the worst peacetime maritime disaster in European waters. “Actually, the blow was so strong I was too stunned to think anything,” says Mr. Härstedt. Mr. Evertsson says that his purpose in making the film was not necessarily to disprove the JAIC report, but to posit another theory for why MS Estonia sunk so quickly that might account for the new hole he discovered. Margus Kurm, former state prosecutor and head of the government's investigative committee looking into the sinking of ferry MS Estonia in 2005-2009, said in an interview with ETV's "Pealtnägija" that new scenes of the shipwreck show the ship most likely sank after a collision with a submarine. The MS Estonia ferry sank as it was crossing from Tallinn to Stockholm in September 1994, killing 852 people. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Crowds gathered to commemorate 852 people killed, including 501 Swedes, in one of Europe's worst peacetime disasters on Sept. 28, 1994. In 1997, the Joint Accident Investigation Committee (JAIC), the body appointed by the Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish governments, issued its report on the sinking. Coronavirus is continuing its spread across the world with more than 85 million confirmed cases in 190 countries and nearly two million deaths. The NATO exercise, which involved 10 NATO … In the East End of London, a man is found stabbed to death near the notorious Ten Bells public house. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. continue to use the site without a The MS Estonia was the pride of its newly independent namesake republic. ... however, the fire itself caused 159 deaths. It still is.”. MS Estonia, a 16,000-ton cruise ferry that began serving the Tallinn-Stockholm route in 1993 and was operated by the Swedish-Estonian shipping company, Estline, was the largest ship sailing under the Estonian flag at the time. A car and passenger ferry, MS Estonia, has sunk in the Baltic Sea with 950 people on board. These ships served to protect and patrol maritime borders. A sudden bang, a ship sinking. The filming took place in September 2019, when a German-flagged boat sent an underwater drone to the wreck of the Estonia in a bid to uncover new details about its sudden and tragic death. The Estonia capsized and sank in 45 minutes, going to the bottom in 250 feet of water, 20 miles south of the coast of Fin- land, at 1.48am. The 852 deaths made it one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century; there were just 137 survivors. As contrary to otherwise held beliefs, the MS Estonia was a ship with almost 15 years of successful ferrying service for four different owners and operators. Many passengers were trapped inside the ship, while others, even some who managed to make it into lifeboats, later drowned in the frigid water or died from hypothermia. Cooperating with colleague Inge Pitsner, Einar Ellermaa has come out with «People of Estonia», a book looking back to Baltic Sea’s severest shipwreck in times of peace 20 years ago, and recounting the stories of those that were saved – as well as the pain of people who lost loved ones. “Sweden is so small that basically everyone knew someone who drowned,” says Rolf Sorman, a Swedish survivor. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. At the same time the door, and putative cause of the disaster, came off entirely. During his long career, Pompey the Great displayed exceptional military talents on the battlefield. Tallinn, Estonia - January 4, 2020: Monument dedicated to the death of the Russian ship -Mermaid-. Documentary Estonia: The Find That Changes Everything investigates the MS Estonia disaster that killed 852 people in the Baltic Sea Bone and ancient artefacts began to appear almost as soon as workmen cut into the earth. However that was not the end of the story for the families of the deceased, nor the survivors, like Mr. Sorman and Mr. Härstedt, who were frustrated by the investigators’ refusal to interview the survivors. Whilst searching for memorial locations in Estonia, I came across a website which has a full passenger and crew list of the Estonia disaster. According to a joint statement published by Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, new underwater video images of the ship's wreck, shows "damage on the starboard side" on the vessel. The catastrophe also made a lasting impression on Mr. Evertsson, who was only 7 when he first heard about it on the radio. More than 1,500 passengers and crew lost their lives. Those who had reached the decks had a chance of survival but those who had not were doomed as the angled corridors had become death traps. The ship suddenly listed 15 minutes later and soon alarms were sounding, including the lifeboat alarm. Estonia was originally ordered from a Norwegian shipping company called Meyer Werft. In the aftermath of the tragedy, a joint Swedish-Finnish-Estonian government committee ruled it an accident and blamed it on stormy weather that caused water to pour through an open bow door and into the Estonia’s car deck, destabilizing the ship and capsizing it in less than an hour. The captain of a dive boat that caught fire last year near Santa Cruz Island, resulting in 34 deaths, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on 34 counts of seaman’s manslaughter. It is the second-deadliest peacetime sinking of a European ship, after the RMS Titanic, and the deadliest peacetime shipwreck to have occurred in European waters, with 852 lives lost." Sound of silence signals catastrophe. Only 137 people survived the disaster. Reports from 17 MDs included the use of FO in victim identification [3025 (14.70%) cases]. The Netherlands recorded about 2,000 more deaths than normal in the first week of April, for example, while in Indonesia's capital of Jakarta the number of funerals rose sharply in March. logged you out. The police call it the result of a drunken brawl; the man’s brother calls it murder, and asks Sherlock Holmes to investigate the circumstances of his brother’s death. The scale of the tragedy, and the small size of the nations involved, meant that it struck across their entire populaces. A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events. An international treaty deeming the MS Estonia a sacred site forbids approaching it or diving near it. An angel with a cross. One month free trial to the Monitor Daily. The reaction of the Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish governments was more complicated. “For me that is sufficient.”. As Mr. Sorman, Mr. Härstedt, and others fought their way to the passenger deck, the car deck became flooded, causing the ferry to capsize and sink in less than 50 minutes. Although the investigators found other contributing or aggravating factors, including the ship’s high speed and the MS Estonian crew’s passivity and lack of safety training, that was deemed the principal cause of the disaster. And they went ahead and filmed the length and breadth of the sunken ship. In 2014, an unfortunate disaster happened in South Korea where a ferry en-route to Jeju Island from Icheon capsized, leaving over 304 of the 476 passengers dead. The successful traversal of the Russian Arctic was a landmark moment for the international shipping industry, ...read more, On September 28, 1965, six years after he led the Cuban Revolution and four years after the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion, Fidel Castro announces that any Cuban who wished to leave the island was free to do so. The case goes to court in January. In the early hours of 28th September 1994, the MS Estonia, a car, and passenger ferry, en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, sank in the Baltic Sea off Finland’s coast. She was, at the time, Estonia's largest ship and operated on the Tallinn-Stockholm route. The sinking of the ferry vessel MS Estonia in the Baltic Sea marks the second-deadliest peacetime sinking of a European ship, after the Titanic, as well as the deadliest peacetime shipwreck to have taken place in European waters. His subsequent defeat of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings marked the beginning of a new era in British history. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it. The Estonia disaster is the second-deadliest peacetime sinking of a European ship after the Titanic. Shortly after midnight, two concussions rocked the ship. All told, 852 of the 980 passengers and crew aboard the massive vessel died in the tragedy. But Mr. Evertsson’s film crew discovered a 14-foot-long hole in the wreckage’s hull, contradicting the report’s finding about the lack of external damage and suggesting that a collision may have caused the catastrophe. A new virus first detected in China has infected more than 88,000 people globally and caused 3,000 deaths. The latest figures reported by each government's health authority as of Friday in Beijing:— Mainland China: 2,788 deaths among 78,824 cases, mostly in the The Baltic ferry Estonia, en route from Tallinn to Stockholm with some 1,000 passengers and crew on board, sank on September 28, 1994. The 15,000-ton steel vessel, 510 feet long and nine decks high, featured a swimming pool, a sauna, a casino, and a cinema, along with labyrinths of cabins with accommodations for up to 2,000 people for the overnight trip between Sweden and Estonia. On September 28, 2018, the cargo ship Venta Maersk docks in St. Petersburg, Russia, more than a month after departing from Vladivostok on the other side of the country. Investigating the sinking has been a priority for him ever since he became a journalist. Talking to daily Postimees (link in Estonian) Andi Meister, an Estonian engineer who headed up the first Swedish-Estonian investigation committee shortly after the incident until 1996, said that the first diving expeditions to the wreck revealed no holes in the hull, either the result of a submarine hitting the ship or for any other reason, which could have caused the vessel to sink. The penalty for the crime is a fine and imprisonment for up to two years. The total number of dead was finally put at 852 - about half of them Swedes. “It’s up to the experts to investigate further.”. The foreign ministers of Finland, Estonia, and Sweden have agreed to jointly assess new evidence regarding the Estonia ferry that sank in 1994. “I was sitting in the ship’s bar, quite sober, when a sudden ‘bang’ took place,” says Swedish Special Envoy to the Korean Peninsula Kent Härstedt, then a young foreign ministry official. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! “My reaction was that the film confirmed the Archimedean principle also applied to [the MS] Estonia,” says Mr. Sorman, now a school headmaster in Nacka, Sweden. Some towns in Italy also saw a jump in recorded deaths. He fought in Africa and Spain, quelled the slave revolt of Spartacus, ...read more, On September 28, 1941, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams plays a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics on the last day of the regular season and gets six hits in eight trips to the plate, to boost his batting average to .406 and become the first player since Bill Terry ...read more. And with that level of shock and grief surrounding you, even reporters can’t help being affected by it. A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 83,000 people globally. The ship was intended for use on a ferry line between Norway and Germany, but the order was withdrawn at the last minute for unknown reasons and the contract was given to Rederi Ab Sally, a Finnish shipping company that was part of the Viking Line consortium. Among those watching were survivors Mr. Sorman and Mr. Härstedt. “Suddenly the ferry was immediately thrown to the side.”. The sinking of the passenger ferry in the early hours of Sept. 28, 1994, under mysterious circumstances in the Baltic Sea is the worst peacetime maritime disaster in European waters. By the time the pandemic ended, an estimated 20 million to 50 million people were dead worldwide. Cooperating with colleague Inge Pitsner, Einar Ellermaa has come out with «People of Estonia», a book looking back to Baltic Sea’s severest shipwreck in times of peace 20 years ago, and recounting the stories of those that were saved – as well as the pain of people who lost loved ones. “I also am upset that it took a private filmmaker and journalist to do a job that three democratic states should have properly done in the first place.”. Jüri Peets reveals his discovery of a mysterious double Viking ship burial. With Cuban forces no longer blocking civilians from ...read more, Claiming his right to the English throne, William, duke of Normandy, invades England at Pevensey on Britain’s southeast coast. The JAIC’s report indicated no external damage to the hull. MS Estonia, a 16,000-ton cruise ferry that began serving the Tallinn-Stockholm route in 1993 and was operated by the Swedish-Estonian shipping company, Estline, was the largest ship sailing under the Estonian flag at the time. Register for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program ( STEP ) to receive important information from the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn and contact us at acstallinn@state.gov if you have any questions not answered here. “Death on this scale was a cataclysm that deeply shook people in both countries. COVID-19 infections are increasing in Japan, with 3,404 new infections reported on average each day. Leif R Jansson/Scanpix/iPhoto.ca/Newscom/File, For Estonian women, military service increasingly attracts as a career, ‘The pandemic has united us’: A media divide fades in the Baltics, Premier for a pandemic: How millennial Sanna Marin won Finland’s approval. “I want to be clear that we didn’t and don’t make any conclusions,” he says. Passenger ferry, Estonia, sinks, killing 852, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/estonia-sinks. It is the second-deadliest peacetime sinking of a European ship, after the RMS Titanic, and the deadliest peacetime shipwreck to have occurred in European waters, with 852 lives lost." “To conduct a new trustworthy investigation is of the utmost importance out of respect for those who died, as well as their relatives, and everyone else who was impacted by the disaster,” says Mr. Härstedt. The MS Estonia was the pride of its newly independent namesake republic. On June 30 prosecutors in Sweden charged Evertsson, a journalist, and Andersson, a cameraman, with violating the burial site of MS Estonia, a ferry ship which sunk in the Baltic Sea in September 1994, leading to the deaths of more than 850 people, according to the Swedish Journalists’ Association, an independent trade association, and Evertsson, who spoke with CPJ via email. In port, the car deck was accessed through a special bow that could be raised to allow vehicles to roll on and roll off. Originally built at the start of the 80s, the vessel came under the ownership of her last operators, the Estonia … The vessel was sailing from Estonia to Sweden on 28 September 1994 when it sank in the Baltic Sea. That’s a lot, but far fewer than the country which claims to have the most – Finland, with 179,000 (we’re not sure who counted them). The makers of the Discovery Networks documentary Estonia… Search for Estonia flights on KAYAK now to find the best deal. Around 1 a.m. on Sept. 28, 1994, the MS Estonia, then en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, foundered in a severe Baltic storm off the southwest Finnish coast. Photo about baltic, outdoors, religion, dome - 171855258 In 1993, the new ferry company Estline bought the Viking Sally and renamed her Estonia, after the European country. subscription yet. A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions. However, the ship struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, sinking in less than three hours. or call us at 1-617-450-2300. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it. The German-built ship was traveling on an overnight cruise from Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, when it sank off the coast of Finland. By comparison, when the ocean liner Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg off of Newfoundland on its maiden voyage in April 1912, approximately 1,500 lives were lost. After hitting stormy weather, with waves reaching an estimated 15 to 20 feet, the Estonia went down in the middle of the night. Your subscription to She was built in 1980 as the Viking Sally for Viking Line. subscription. The emotions went as deep as any I’ve ever seen or felt. 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