There's been no sign of life since Sunday. It would be wrong to entertain false hopes for the five crew and passengers who plunged into the North Atlantic aboard a small tourist sub to explore the wreck of the Titanic. We ask about the massive search-and-rescue effort and see why it would be a miracle if those inside the Titan live to tell the tale.
We also ask about the fascination with the Titanic, the world’s largest cruise ship that went down during its maiden transatlantic crossing in 1912. Long before James Cameron's 1997 Hollywood blockbuster, the story of the rich and poor who embarked on the ill-fated liner has captivated our collective imagination.
More broadly, the tourists and treasure hunters drawn by shipwrecks face all sorts of dangers and risk upsetting delicate ecosystems. To what degree? That’s still an open question. It’s argued that we know more about space than the bottom of the ocean. Ironically, news that the Titan had gone missing broke the same day that the United Nations adopted a first-ever High Seas Treaty to protect the Earth’s waters.
Prepard by François Picard, Alessandro Xenos, Lauren Bain, Imen Mellaz
