Best Mass Casualty

MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German military transport ship originally built as a cruise ship for the Strength Through Joy organization in the 1930s. On January 30, 1945, it was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S-13 while participating in Operation Hannibal, evacuating German civilians and military pe...

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line that held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing early in its career. During World War I, on May 7, 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the ship off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking resulted in the deaths o...

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line and was one of the largest ships afloat at the time of its maiden voyage. On April 15, 1912, the vessel struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank, leading to the deaths of approximately 1,500 passengers and crew d...

USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy that saw extensive service during World War II. In July 1945, the ship completed a top-secret mission to deliver components for the first atomic bomb to Tinian island. On July 30, 1945, the vessel was torpedoed by...

RMS Lancastria was a British Cunard Line ocean liner that was requisitioned by the government for use as a troopship during World War II. On June 17, 1940, the ship was bombed by German aircraft off the coast of Saint-Nazaire, France, while participating in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British...

MV Estonia was a cruise ferry built in 1979 that operated in the Baltic Sea for Estline, a joint Estonian-Swedish shipping company. On September 28, 1994, while sailing from Tallinn to Stockholm, the ship encountered heavy weather and its bow visor detached, causing the vehicle ramp to open and the...

SS Cap Arcona was a German passenger liner launched for transatlantic service and later used by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. On 3 May 1945, British aircraft attacked and sank it in the Bay of Lubeck while thousands of concentration camp prisoners were confined aboard. Most of the prison...

MV Sewol was a South Korean passenger ferry that operated a route between Incheon and Jeju Island. On April 16, 2014, the vessel capsized while carrying 476 passengers and crew, most of whom were high school students on a field trip from Danwon High School. The incident resulted in 304 deaths, large...

MV Le Joola was a Senegalese government-owned roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry that primarily transported passengers between Ziguinchor in the Casamance region and Dakar. On the night of September 26, 2002, the ferry capsized off the coast of The Gambia during a severe storm. The ship was heavily ov...

MV Goya was a Norwegian freighter that was requisitioned by Germany during World War II and used as a troop transport and refugee vessel. On April 16, 1945, while participating in the evacuation of German military personnel and civilians from the eastern Baltic, the ship was spotted and torpedoed by...

RMS Empress of Ireland was a Canadian Pacific Line passenger vessel that entered transatlantic service in 1906, operating primarily between Liverpool and Quebec City. In the early hours of May 29, 1914, she was struck on her starboard side by the Norwegian collier Storstad in dense fog on the St. La...

SS Sultana was a wooden side-wheel steamboat operating on the Mississippi River during the final weeks of the American Civil War. On 27 April 1865, overloaded with passengers, including many recently released Union prisoners of war, it suffered a catastrophic boiler explosion north of Memphis and bu...

SS Eastland was a Great Lakes passenger steamship built in 1903 that developed a reputation for instability after multiple incidents early in its career. On the morning of July 24, 1915, while still docked in the Chicago River and loaded with employees of the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Wor...

SS General Slocum was a wooden side-wheel passenger steamer that caught fire in New York City's East River on June 15, 1904. The vessel was carrying a church excursion, largely composed of women and children from the German-American community of Little Germany, when the disaster killed more than 1,0...

SS Laconia was a British ocean liner requisitioned as a troopship during the Second World War. German submarine U-156 torpedoed it in the South Atlantic on 12 September 1942 while it carried crew, passengers, British and Polish military personnel, and about 1,800 Italian prisoners of war. Rescue eff...

SS Kiangya was a Chinese passenger steamship operated by the Shanghai Merchants Steam Navigation Company. In December 1948, as the Chinese Civil War raged, she suffered a massive internal explosion—likely caused by a mine left by retreating forces—and broke in two near the mouth of the Huangpu River...

MS Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) passenger and vehicle ferry operated by the British ferry company Townsend Thoresen. On March 6, 1987, the vessel capsized shortly after departing the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, resulting in the deaths of 193 passengers and crew. The disaste...

MV Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 was an Egyptian passenger ferry that sank in the Red Sea on 3 February 2006 while traveling from Dubah, Saudi Arabia, toward Safaga, Egypt. A fire broke out before the vessel capsized and sank, and more than 1,000 passengers and crew died. The loss became one of Egypt's dead...

SS Toya Maru was a Japanese train ferry operated by Japanese National Railways (JNR) that linked Aomori on Honshu with Hakodate on Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait. On September 26, 1954, the vessel encountered Typhoon Marie (also known as the Toya Maru Typhoon) and sank during the crossing, resul...

HMS Birkenhead was a British iron-hulled paddle steamer used as a troopship that struck a submerged rock and sank off the coast of South Africa on 26 February 1852. With too few serviceable boats for everyone aboard, soldiers remained assembled while women and children were placed in the available b...

The TSS Morro Castle was an American ocean liner built for the New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company, commonly known as the Ward Line. On September 8, 1934, while traveling from Havana to New York, a severe fire broke out on board off the coast of New Jersey, killing 137 passengers and crew membe...

MV Princess of the Stars was a Philippine passenger ferry operated by Sulpicio Lines. It capsized near Sibuyan Island on 21 June 2008 after sailing into Typhoon Fengshen, known locally as Typhoon Frank, while carrying more than 800 passengers and crew. Only a small number survived, and the disaster...

SS Rohna was a British India Steam Navigation Company passenger and cargo ship used as a troop transport during the Second World War. On 26 November 1943, a German aircraft struck it off the Algerian coast with a Henschel Hs 293 radio-guided glide bomb. The sinking killed more than 1,100 people, inc...

SS Atlantic was a White Star Line passenger steamship operating between Europe and North America. On 1 April 1873, it struck rocks near Mars Head, Nova Scotia, after its crew diverted toward Halifax because of concerns about coal supplies. More than 500 people died, making the wreck one of the 19th...

SS Fort Stikine was a British cargo ship destroyed in Bombay Harbour, now Mumbai Harbour, on 14 April 1944. Its cargo included explosives, ammunition, cotton, and gold bullion; a fire aboard the vessel led to two major explosions that killed hundreds of people and caused extensive damage to ships, d...

SS Khedive Ismail was a British troop transport sunk in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War. On 12 February 1944, the Japanese submarine I-27 torpedoed the ship while it was carrying military personnel and other passengers from East Africa toward Ceylon. Approximately 1,297 of roughly 1,511...

RMS Leinster was a mail and passenger steamship operated by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company on the route between Kingstown, now Dun Laoghaire, and Holyhead. On 10 October 1918, the German submarine UB-123 torpedoed and sank her in the Irish Sea shortly after departure. More than 500 passenge...

SS Arctic was an American wooden-hulled paddle steamship operated by the Collins Line on transatlantic passenger service. On 27 September 1854, it collided with the French steamship Vesta in fog off Newfoundland and later sank in the North Atlantic. The disaster killed roughly 300 people, with no wo...

SS Norge was a Danish passenger steamship operated by the Thingvalla Line and used mainly on routes carrying European emigrants to North America. On 28 June 1904, she struck Hasselwood Rock near Rockall in the North Atlantic and sank rapidly, leaving too little lifeboat capacity for those aboard; mo...