Iceberg. INQUIRER.net stock photo
The sinking of the “RMS Titanic” remains one of the worst sea tragedies.
The devastating events were used as material for the 1997 pop-culture classic “Titanic,” which attributed the accident to a massive iceberg.
However, recent evidence are pointing to a different cause, as the sinking of the famed cruise liner is believed to have been caused by an enormous fire on board.
Contrary to earlier reports that the Titanic smashed against the giant floating mass in the North Atlantic, researchers claim that there was an unnoticed fire inside the ship’s hull, three weeks before the tragic collision.
According to the Independent, journalist Senan Molony, who has been researching the Titanic for over 30 years, examined countless photographs by the chief electrical engineers before it left the Belfast shipyard in 1912.
He noticed unusual marks located at the front right-hand side of the hull, which was behind the lining that was pierced by the iceberg.
“We are looking at the exact area where the iceberg stuck, and we appear to have a weakness or damage to the hull in that specific place, before she even left Belfast,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
After further investigation, experts said the marks were most probably caused by a fire inside a three-story-high fuel stop in one of the ship’s boiler rooms.
Although the fire most likely had nothing to do with the ship colliding with the ice, the damage left the steel hull weak enough for the ship’s lining to be torn open during the crash.
“The official Titanic inquiry branded [the sinking] as an act of God. This isn’t a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking,” Molony explained.
“It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence,” he added.
Furthermore, Moloney insisted that the fire incident was known by Titanic’s officers but was played down and was not even mentioned to the ship’s 2,500 passengers. Khristian Ibarrola /ra
RELATED STORY:
LOOK: Submarine cruise offers full view of Titanic wreckage