List of major marine casualties 1901–1910

This list of serious marine casualties 1901–1910 records accidents in shipping with fatalities or high property damage in the first decade of the 20th century .

list

date	Surname	dead	Course of events
February 22, 1901	City of Rio de Janeiro	138	The American passenger steamer got into thick fog in the Bay of San Francisco and grazed an underwater rock that tore open the entire hull of the ship. It sank within a few minutes. 138 of the 220 people on board were killed. The sinking of the City of Rio de Janeiro is considered to be the worst shipwreck in the San Francisco Bay Area to date , and the wreck has the status of an American cultural monument .
August 15, 1901	Islander	40	The Canadian liner Islander , which carried passengers and cargo on the Inside Passage on the west coast of the United States and Canada , rammed an iceberg in the Lynn Canal south of Juneau . Attempts to run the ship aground failed. The Islander sank within 15 minutes, with 40 passengers and crew lost their lives.
November 13, 1901	Beauchamp	10	During a rescue operation for a ship stranded on Barber Strand during a hurricane, the lifeboat Beauchamp, stationed in Caiste , capsized while trying to get into the open sea. Only two of the twelve crew members survived the accident.
May 6, 1902	Camorta	739	In the mouth of the Irrawaddy River (Indian Ocean), the British passenger ship Camorta got into a cyclone and sank. The ship was on its way to Rangoon ( Burma ) with 739 passengers and crew . There were no survivors.
May 8, 1902	Roraima	57	The Canadian passenger ship Roraima was anchored in the port of Saint-Pierre on Martinique during the eruption of the Mont Pelée volcano and was destroyed by the huge glowing cloud . 57 of the 68 people on board were killed.
June 24, 1902	P 42	5	The German torpedo boat S 42 (145 t) sank in the Elbe estuary after a collision with the British freighter Firsby . Five of the 16 men on the torpedo boat were killed.
July 20, 1902	Primus	101	On the way back from an excursion to the Alte Land, the Hamburg passenger ship Primus collided with Hapag's Hansa tugboat in the Elbe , caught fire and sank after a very short time. Despite immediate rescue measures, 101 people were killed.
January 8, 1904	Clallam	56	The Canadian steamship got caught in a storm on Juan de Fuca Street on the coast of Washington state . Water seeped into the hull and put out the fires in the kettles. The ship drifted incapacitated for several hours and finally capsized off San Juan Island at the entrance to Puget Sound . More than half of the people on board were killed, including all women and children.
Early March 1904	Conemaugh	40	The Belgian freighter Conemaugh (2,328 GRT) of the Red Star Line , with a load of sugar on its way from Honolulu to Philadelphia , was lost off Cape Horn for reasons that are not clear . Both the exact place of the sinking and the time (probably beginning of March 1904?) Are not known. The last known whereabouts of the ship was Coronel (on February 28, 1904). The entire crew of 40 men disappeared with the freighter. Debris or bodies were never found.
May 15, 1904	Yoshino	319	During the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese 3rd Cruiser Division ran into the night of the 14th and 15th. May 1904 in the Yellow Sea in thick fog and lost cohesion. At around 1.30 a.m., the gun cruiser Yoshino collided with the armored cruiser Kasuga and capsized. 319 crew members went down with the cruiser. 107 survivors were rescued from the armored cruiser. After the disaster, the Japanese admiralty had the ram rams removed from all of their warships.
June 15, 1904	General Slocum	1,021	The American paddle steamer General Slocum caught fire on June 15, 1904 on New York's East River (USA) and sank. 1,021 people are killed in the disaster, mainly women and children.
June 28, 1904	Norge	625	The Danish liner was en route from Copenhagen to New York with 795 people on board when the strong current and difficulties with the compass threw it off course. The Norge collided with a reef at Rockall Rock and sank in 20 minutes. There were only 170 survivors. The sinking of the Norge was the largest shipwreck in the North Atlantic to date.
July 21, 1905	Bennington	66	The American gunboat Bennington (1,710 ts) was badly damaged by a boiler explosion off San Diego . Of 112 crew members (around 80 were on shore leave) 66 died and all 46 survivors were injured. The ship was not lost, but was not put back into service because of the severe damage and was sunk itself in the 1920s.
September 12, 1905	Mikasa	339	After a fire, a cartridge chamber and a torpedo exploded on the Japanese liner Mikasa (15,200 t) . As a result of the explosions, the ship sank in the port of Sasebo . Of the 935 man crew, 339 men were killed and 343 men injured. The ship was later lifted and put back into service in 1907.
November 17, 1905	P. 126	33	The German deep-sea torpedo boat S 126 (420 t) sank in the Kiel Fjord after a collision with the German light cruiser Undine . Of the 56 man crew of the deep sea torpedo boat, 33 men were killed.
November 18, 1905	Hilda	125	On the Breton coast, the British steamship Hilda was approaching its destination, the entrance to the port of Saint-Malo . A heavy snowstorm prevented the Hilda from entering the port. The steamer hit a reef off the island of Cézembre, ran aground and broke apart. Only six people could be rescued from the troubled sea.
January 22, 1906	Valencia	136	The American passenger steamer failed to enter the Juan de Fuca Strait in heavy seas, strong winds and limited visibility off Vancouver Island and ran aground on a reef. Almost all of the lifeboats capsized or were washed away. Because of the bad weather conditions and the churned sea, rescue ships could not do anything for the castaways. Only 37 people survived, exclusively men. It was one of the worst shipping accidents in the Pacific Northwest .
4th August 1906	Sirio	442	The Italian passenger steamer was on its way from Genoa to Buenos Aires when it hit a reef off Cabo de Palos on the south coast of Spain and capsized. More than half of the passengers and crew drowned. It was one of the greatest disasters in the history of Italian civil steam shipping.
November 18, 1906	Dix	45	The passenger ferry Dix , which belonged to the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet , collided two miles north of Alki Point , the westernmost point of the city of Seattle , with the ten times larger schooner Jeanie . The ship sank five minutes after the collision; more than half of the people on board died. It was one of the worst shipping accidents in Puget Sound .
December 16, 1906	Princess Victoria Luise	1	Due to a navigation error, the German HAPAG cruise ship Princess Victoria Luise stranded in front of the port entrance of Kingston ( Jamaica ) and had to be abandoned after the passengers had been rescued. The captain shot himself on board the damaged vessel. The Princess Victoria Luise was the first passenger ship built as a cruise ship and the first total loss of a cruise ship.
February 11, 1907	Larchmont	140	The paddle steamer Larchmont of the American shipping company Joy Steamship Line collided with the sailing ship Harry Knowlton off the island of Block Island on the coast of the US state of Rhode Island . The ship was almost severed while the cauldrons exploded. After 15 minutes the Larchmont went under. Only 17 people survived, including only two women. It was the worst shipwreck in the Rhode Island Sound to date .
February 21, 1907	Berlin	168	When entering the port of Hoek van Holland , the British passenger ship Berlin of the Great Eastern Railway was lifted by the stormy swell and pressed onto the northern pier head, where it landed when the wave passed and broke into two parts. Further waves tore numerous passengers from the stuck ship and smashed all lifeboats. A total of 15 people were rescued from those who were stranded on the stern of the ship.
February 22, 1907	Imperatrix	40	The passenger steamer Imperatrix , which belonged to Austria-Hungary's largest shipping company , Österreichischer Lloyd , and was on its way from Trieste to Bombay with 140 people on board , got caught in a storm off Elafonisi on the southwest coast of Crete , was diverted from its course and hit the cliff. 40 people were killed in the fall.
March 12, 1907	Iéna	118	A series of devastating explosions occurred in the port of Toulon on board the French liner Iéna (11,668 ts) in the early morning hours of March 12. Since the ship was in dry dock, the ammunition chambers could not be flooded. As a result, the liner was largely destroyed and fell over in the dock. The nearby ship of the line Suffren was also damaged. A total of 118 seafarers were killed. The Iéna was later erected again in an extensive rescue operation and then repaired for two years. The misfortune caused by cellulose nitrate which cannot be stored in storage resulted in the resignation of the Minister of the Navy, Gaston Thomson, and a major scandal in France .
July 21, 1907	Columbia	88	The American passenger liner Columbia (2,722 t), which was on its way from San Francisco to Portland with 251 people on board, collided with the schooner San Pedro (457 t) in thick fog near Shelter Cove and sank within a few minutes. 88 passengers and crew members died. The San Pedro survived the collision.
13./14. December 1907	Thomas W. Lawson	16	The American sailing tanker and seven- masted gaff schooner Thomas W. Lawson ran aground and sank while attempting to weather a storm within the western Isles of Scilly , en route from Philadelphia to London . 16 sailors and the pilot were killed. This was the first oil spill .
April 30, 1908	Matsushima	141	After a maneuver, the ammunition chamber of the Japanese protected cruiser Matsushima exploded in the port of Makung (Pescadores Islands) for unexplained reasons . The roughly 4,200 ts ship broke in two and sank. 141 seafarers were killed in the accident. About 200 survivors were rescued by harbor vehicles.
September 20, 1908	Star of Bengal	110	In stormy weather, the Bark Star of Bengal stranded on the coast of Coronation Island on the south coast of Alaska . The ship ran on rocks, broke in three, and sank in three minutes. Because of the very bad weather, the attempt of the tug Hattie Gage to help the people on the barque in the dangerous situation failed . Only 27 of the 137 people on board the Star of Bengal survived.
October 1908	Neustria	41	The steamer Neustria (2,926 t) of the French shipping company Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Compagnie cast off on October 27, 1908 in New York for Marseille and disappeared in the North Atlantic .
January 23, 1909	Republic	6th	The 15,000 GRT passenger steamer Republic of the British White Star Line collided in thick fog with the small Italian steamer Florida off Nantucket . Six people died. The Florida stayed afloat despite damage, while the Republic sank 36 hours after the collision. Rescuing the passengers of the two ships by the Baltic was one of the largest sea transfers in history.
February 12, 1909	Penguin	72	The New Zealand passenger steamer Penguin hit an underwater rock on the Cook Strait at the entrance to Wellington Harbor in stormy seas and complete darkness and sank. The ship was torn apart by violent boiler explosions. Only 30 passengers and crew members survived, including only one woman.
June 10, 1909	Slavonia	0	On the way from New York to Trieste ( Austria-Hungary ), the 10,606 GRT Cunard steamer Slavonia stranded in the thick fog on the Azores island of Flores . The Slavonia was the first ship in history to send an SOS emergency call after a shipwreck . All around 400 passengers on board were taken over by the Princess Irene of North German Lloyd and the HAPAG steamer Batavia . Nobody was harmed.
26./29. July 1909	Waratah	211	The steamship Waratah disappeared on the voyage from Durban to Cape Town . 211 people were killed on it. The wreck has not yet been discovered.
November 14, 1909	La Seyne	101	26 nautical miles off Singapore , the passenger ships La Seyne of the Messageries Maritimes and Onda of the British India Steam Navigation Company collided in the fog . The La Seyne , which was hit on the port side, sank within a few minutes. Of 162 passengers and crew members, 101 were killed.
December 2, 1909	Vegesack	7th	After taking over a total of nine shipwrecked people from two coastal sailing ships stranded in the Outer Jade, the crew of the rowing lifeboat Vegesack, stationed in Hooksiel, was unable to return to their home port in a heavy storm, but forced them to head for the Minsener Oog beacon . Six shipwrecked people who had already been rescued and one rescue man were killed in the storm. Together with the accident of Adolph Bermpohl in February 1967, this accident is still the worst in the history of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People.
December 3, 1909	Ellan Vannin	36	The British passenger liner Ellan Vannin sank in the Mersey Bar at the entrance to Liverpool Harbor in a severe storm. None of the 15 passengers and 21 crew members could be saved.
after January 10, 1910	Loodiana	175	The British passenger ship Loodiana has been missing in the Indian Ocean with 175 people on board since it left Port Louis ( Mauritius ) on January 10, 1910 on the crossing to Colombo ( Ceylon ).
February 10, 1910	Général Chanzy	155	The French passenger steamer was on its way from Marseille to Algiers when it was thrown onto a reef off Menorca by violent squalls. The boilers exploded and the ship broke apart and sank. Only one of the 156 people on board survived.
March 31, 1910	Pericles	0	The Pericles (10,925 GRT), at the time the largest British passenger ship in service to Australia, ran with 401 passengers and crew on board off the coast of Western Australia on a previously unknown rock. The ship sank within two and a half hours. Due to the relatively favorable conditions, all people on board could be saved. The wreck was not discovered until the 1950s.
November 6, 1910	Prussia	0	The Prussians collided in the English Channel with the British steamer Brighton , which crossed her course contrary to the regulations. When they wanted to bring them with three tugs into the port of Dover , the cables broke because of the coming storm. The crew tried in vain to clear the ship. It was stranded on the cliffs in front of the safe harbor.

See also

• List of disasters

Footnotes

1. ↑ Otto Mielke: Disasters at Sea. Gerhard Stalling Oldenburg, Hamburg 1957.