Titanic sank due to gigantic icebergs: Study

Zee Media Bureau

London: A new study has blamed gigantic icebergs for the sinking of the luxury liner Titanic, which sank in the ice cold Atlantic waters in 1912. While the sinking of the Titanic is typically blamed on human, design and construction errors, a new study pointed out two other unfavourable factors, which were outside human control. The RMS Titanic, a British passenger liner sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The Titanic disaster saw 1,517 people perish and only 700 survive. According to the researchers, there were a greater number of icebergs than normal that year, and weather conditions had driven them further south, and earlier in the year, than was usual. The study also noted that iceberg discharge from glaciers is increasing, with more heavy iceberg years since the 1980s than before, and increasing global warming will likely cause this trend to continue. “As use of the Arctic increases in the future with declining sea-ice, and as polar ice sheets are increasingly losing mass as well, the iceberg risk is likely to increase in the future, rather than decline,” said co-author Professor Grant Bigg from the University of Sheffield in UK. The study was published in the journal Significance. (With Agencies Input)