Ship Accidents

As the death toll from the gangway collapse on the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship rose to 15, French President Jacques Chirac urged a rapid investigation into what he called "an incomprehensible tragedy." Prosecutors launched a judicial inquiry against "unknown persons" on charges of manslaughter and involuntary injury in Saturday's accident, which sent visitors to the world's largest cruise ship plunging at least 50 feet to the bottom of a dry dock in the town of Saint Nazaire.

Divers scoured the water for survivors and passengers told of Titanic-style pandemonium and being abandoned by crew members Saturday after a luxury cruise liner was ripped open by rocks off the Italian coast. At least three people died and 40 were injured in the accident near Tuscany, which forced more than 4,200 passengers and crew members to abandon the ship Costa Concordia on Friday evening. Dramatic photos taken Saturday showed the jumbo liner tipped over in the water, a long gash in its hull, near the small island of Giglio.

Nine sailors were injured by smoke inhalation and four of them suffered burns in a fire Wednesday aboard the oiler Monongahela in the eastern Atlantic, the fifth incident this week involving Navy vessels. One civilian specialist on industrial hazards warned that cutbacks in Navy training could lead to more such accidents. "Congress is always trying to cut training budgets. But, if a pilot can't practice flying, those on the deck don't get trained either. . . .

Reporting from Seoul Kenneth R. Weiss and Los Angeles -- Australians on Sunday scrambled to ensure that a Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier that rammed into the Great Barrier Reef would not break apart and seriously damage the planet's largest coral reef. Peter Garrett, the nation's environment protection minister, told reporters that the government was concerned about the effect an oil spill could have on the environmentally sensitive reef, one of the wonders of the natural world that was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

The captain of a freighter that ran aground in the Aleutian Islands and broke apart, spilling more than 335,000 gallons of fuel, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of making a false statement to federal investigators. Kailash Bhushan Singh, 53, of New Delhi was sentenced to three years' probation, which he will be allowed to serve in his own country. Singh admitted in U.S.

Circling the world for three months on an ocean liner while earning a semester's worth of college credits has been a life-changing adventure for thousands of students who have joined the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea program. But a recent handful of accidental deaths has some Southern California parents contending that the experience should come with a warning label.

A preliminary Coast Guard investigation has determined that human error caused a cargo ship to crash into the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. On Saturday, crews intensified efforts to rescue wildlife and clean up the resulting oil spill. "There were skilled enough individuals on board this ship," said Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the Coast Guard's top official in California. "They didn't carry out their missions correctly."

Reporting from Seoul Kenneth R. Weiss and Los Angeles -- Australians on Sunday scrambled to ensure that a Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier that rammed into the Great Barrier Reef would not break apart and seriously damage the planet's largest coral reef. Peter Garrett, the nation's environment protection minister, told reporters that the government was concerned about the effect an oil spill could have on the environmentally sensitive reef, one of the wonders of the natural world that was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

A marine science trip came to a dramatic end Friday for 35 ninth-grade students when the tall ship they were sailing on began taking on water amid choppy seas and windy weather. The schooner American Pride docked safely at its home port at Rainbow Harbor in Long Beach, but not before the U.S. Coast Guard responded with all available resources and was joined by crews from the Long Beach and Los Angeles fire departments.

Maxwell Bhikham and Alan George gave their lives for $5 a day. Or $13, if you include tips. Bhikham was a Guyanese deckhand, age 28. George, 23, was a steward from Grenada. On Oct. 27, 1998, they were two of 31 worried crew members aboard the schooner Fantome in the waters off Honduras. The Fantome was not a typical cruise ship.

Heaping more tragedy on an already grieving South Korea, a fishing vessel assisting in the search for 46 crewmen of a sunken naval boat went down Saturday, and the nine on board were presumed dead. As the South Korean coast guard retrieved the bodies of two of the fishermen, divers found the first corpse from the 1,200-ton navy ship Cheonan, which sank late last month after an explosion. Fifty-eight crew members, including the captain, were rescued. The body was discovered near the ship's mess hall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Forty-six sailors were missing Saturday after a South Korean naval vessel sank along the country's disputed western sea border with North Korea, an incident that military officials here at first believed was caused by an attack by their northern enemies. Fears of possible renewed warfare filled South Korea's capital with dread overnight. As naval ships rescued 58 crewmen from icy waters, President Lee Myung-bak and Defense Ministry officials convened an emergency meeting. For hours, officials believed the ship had struck a mine or was hit by a torpedo late Friday, and Lee dispatched an armada of ships to investigate and search for imperiled crewmen.

The captain of the Tongan ferry that sank and left 93 people missing and presumed dead said Monday that he was pressured into sailing the vessel even though authorities knew it had problems. Capt. Maka Tuputupu blamed the sinking on rusted loading ramps that allowed water into the ship, and he said the Tongan government should take responsibility because it knew there were problems with the vessel. Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele and Transportation Minister Paul Karalus have said the Princess Ashika was fully seaworthy, was fully certificated for the service and met all international maritime standards.

A ship carrying a group of radical anti-whaling activists collided with a Japanese whaling vessel in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica today in a clash Japan's Fisheries Agency called unforgivable. No one was injured. Activist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said his ship was trying to prevent a Japanese ship from dragging a whale on board when another Japanese vessel shot in front of Watson's, causing a collision. In a statement, the Institute of Cetacean Research -- the Japanese government-affiliated organization that oversees the hunt -- condemned the protesters' actions, characterizing the collision as a "deliberate ramming."

A Danish cargo ship loaded with 400 tons of dynamite and detonators and abandoned by its crew after a fire drifted in the English Channel on Tuesday. Coast guard officials warned vessels in the busy international waterway to steer clear of the ship for fear that the fire may be continuing and could trigger a huge explosion. The crew of two men and three women abandoned the 1,000-ton, 136-foot Hornestrand on Tuesday morning after Capt. Niels Bach Kristensen saw smoke coming from a hold.

The September sinking of a state-run ferry killed 1,863 people, the prime minister said, more than 700 above the count issued by an earlier government inquiry. Officials previously said 1,153 people died and 64 survived when the Joola sank, making it Africa's deadliest ferry disaster. The Joola was built to hold 550 people. Prime Minister Idrissa Seck gave the new estimate in his annual formal address to the nation's legislature.