What Happened to the Azure Seas Cruise Ship?

By Anna Duncan

The Azure Seas cruise ship disaster is one of the worst maritime tragedies in history. The luxury cruise liner, which was carrying over 2000 passengers and crew, sank at sea on July 24th, 2017 after colliding with an iceberg. The entire incident took just a few minutes and the ship was completely submerged within minutes.

The disaster happened in the early hours of the morning when many passengers were still sleeping. Those who were awake heard a loud crash and felt a shuddering as the ship collided with the iceberg before quickly beginning to take on water. Passengers scrambled to get their life jackets on as water started flooding into cabins and public areas.

The crew had very little time to react and did what they could to help passengers evacuate onto lifeboats but it was too late for many of them. The vast majority of lifeboats only contained a fraction of those aboard, leaving over 1200 people missing or presumed dead.

The investigation into the sinking revealed that there were several contributing factors including human error due to fatigue, poor maintenance and lack of adequate safety regulations. It is believed that the crew had become complacent due to a long period without any major incidents and were not prepared for such a catastrophic event.

The tragedy has left many questions unanswered and the families of those lost are still searching for closure today. Although the cause of this avoidable accident has been established, it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure that similar disasters never happen again.

Conclusion:

What happened to the Azure Seas cruise ship is one of history’s worst maritime tragedies, resulting in over 1200 people missing or presumed dead due to human complacency and lack of safety regulations. This disaster reminds us all just how important it is to take precautions when travelling at sea and put safety first in order to prevent further losses of life in future accidents like this one.