More than 100 years have passed since the terrible catastrophe, but this story remains one of the most striking tragedies of mankind. The magnificent, "unsinkable" ship, to which the admiring gaze of the whole world was turned, crashed on its first voyage. The passengers of that flight were 2, 200 people, the tragedy claimed the lives of more than 1, 500 of them.
Timeline of the events of April 10, 1912
At 11:39 p.m. April 14, the forward looking Titanic Frederic Fleet noticed right at the heading about 650 m from the iceberg. Striking the bell three times, he reported over the telephone to the bridge. The first assistant ordered the helmsman: "Left aboard!" - and moved the handles of the machine telegraphs to the "Full back" position. A little later, so that the liner would not touch the iceberg with stern, he ordered: "The right to board!". However, the Titanic was too large for a quick maneuver, and the ship continued to move by inertia for another 25-30 seconds, until his nose began to slowly deviate to the left.
At 23:40, the "Titanic" tangentially collided with an iceberg. On the upper decks, people felt a slight push and a slight trembling of the hull, on the lower decks the blow was more noticeable. As a result of the collision, six holes with a total length of about 90 meters were formed in the right side skin. At 0:05, Captain Smith ordered the crew to prepare lifeboats for launch, then went into the radio room and ordered the radio operators to broadcast a distress signal.
Around 0:20, children and women were put in boats. At 1:20, water began to flood the forecastle. At this time, the first signs of panic appeared. Evacuation went faster. After 1:30 a panic started on board. At about 2:00 the last boat was launched, at 2:05 the water began to flood the boat deck and the captain’s bridge. Remaining on board 1, 500 people rushed towards the stern. The trim began to grow before our eyes, at 2:15 the first chimney collapsed. At 2:16, the power went out. At 2:18, with a trim on the nose at about 23 °, the liner broke. The bow, falling off, immediately went to the bottom, and the feed was filled with water and sank after two minutes.
At 2:20, the Titanic completely disappeared under water. Hundreds of people surfaced, but almost all of them died from hypothermia. On two folding boats, which did not manage to be lowered from the liner, about 45 people were saved. Eight more were saved by two boats returning to the crash site (No. 4 and No. 14). An hour and a half after the Titanic was completely submerged, the Karpatia steamer arrived at the scene of the disaster and picked up 712 crash survivors.
