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"The Titanic sinking - Natural or Human Disaster?"

I thought I'd better post this before Machie and Garin have nothing left to say about it. (As if Machie and Garin would ever run out of things to say)
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There are many reasons for the sinking of The Titanic to be a human disaster. One reason being the fact there were only 20 life boats on board, meaning that less than half the passengers, not including the crew, would not be safe when the ship went under. Another human error was that look-outs may not have had any binoculars, however this wasn't proved, but would made the fact that the Titanic was speeding through the ocean, even though the crew had been warned about the icebergs that were sighted earlier in the region even worse, because he couldn't see the iceberg until they were much closer, and to late to aviod the it. After the Titanic was peirced by the iceberg, 5 of the 16 water-tight compartments were flooded, if only 4 got flooded the ship would have stayed afloat, the extra flooding was partly due to the fact that the water-tight compartments were not built to the very top, meaning that the water flowed over the top of the doors flooding more compartments. Only 703 out of the 2200 travellers survived, this is related back to the first point, about the lifeboats. However it isn't just that there weren't enough, but when they first tried to get the passengers into the lifeboats, no one believed that the ship was sinking, therefore no one planned to get on and the first few lifeboats were sent away with less than half the full capacity.

Even though there were many human errors, nature played a part in this disaster. Such as the iceberg, completely natural, no relation to mankind at all, therefore cannot be human error, and it was the iceberg that caused the hole, that allowed the water to overflow 5 compartments, making the ship sink. Darkness was another factor that contributed to the sinking of the Titanic, if it weren't dark then the look-out would have seen the iceberg in time for the ship to turn and possibly miss it.

So, was it a human disaster or natural? I'll leave you lot to argue about it.
Also, please consider that even though there are more human errors than natural, most of the human errors are linked. So its about half and half of each.

I'd side with Human error.

Well thank yee, my homework is done :D

Cycloon wrote:
>
> Edit; I've often wondered why the Titanic gets so much press.

"Unsinkable"

He was actually referring to the potential weather conditions in America, or so he said. Was what happened in 1987 actually a hurricaine in technical terms anyway? Meh, it's a good excuse to laugh at the guy!

The funniest one had to be Michael Fish, what an idiot.

I think it was a purely human error disaster due to not enough care being taken by the crew.

OK it hit an iceberg which is a natural thing but when you're sailing where it was you expect to come across icebergs and should be looking out for them.

For me a natural disaster is where you have little or no advance warning that it is going to occur, for example the Asian tsunami or the New Orleans hurricane.

Both. The natural disaster of hitting an iceberg revealed a situation where folly created an even bigger human disaster.

Edit; I've often wondered why the Titanic gets so much press. Yer it was famous and yer it was horrendous. In WW2 (yes a war alright but still) a German ship carrying civilians from East Prussia towards Germany in the face of the Soviet advance was torpedoed, 9000 people drowned.

Aliens.

It IS a human disaster .. to think of it any other way is daft. Not only were the people sailing that ship fully aware that icebergs occur in those waters, they had also RECEIVED and IGNORED iceberg warnings that very night. The ship was travelling way too fast for the conditions it was in ... not only was the sea in that area laced with icebergs, it was also reported as being calm.

Calm seas are bad for this type of scenario as it means there are little or no breakwaters that outline the base of icebergs. The sailors on this ship were aware of this yet again chose to ignore it.

The reason for this is that at that particular era, shipbuilders of Europe and the United States were competing for the 'Blue Ribbon', an award given to those who manage to cross the north atlantic in the shortest possible time. It is theorised that the reason for the dangerously high speed and ignorance of dangerous conditions, was due to an attempt to gain this award. Whether this is true or not, the facts speak for themselves ... the captain and sailors on that ship were pushing it too fast for the conditions ... they and 1500 passengers paid the price for this stupidity with their lives.

I might also add to this that when the iceberg was spotted, whoever was at the helm decided to reverse engines and turn, ironically, the ships turning abilities were much less effective when the engines were in reverse. Following investigation it was proved that if they had simply steered and not reversed the engines, more than likely the iceberg would have been avoided completely. Another example of human error.

You just can't blame nature when the people sailing that ship were fully aware of what dangers were out there. They pushed their luck, and when the worst happened, they made poor decisions.

Garin wrote:
> Now you're just being silly. Darkness is neither an extreme or
> unusual event. Perhaps I'll take the car out for a spin tonight
> and run a few people down. I'll be able to claim natural
> disaster I'm sure.
>
> Natural disasters are usually characterised by acts of nature
> that would be considered unusual or extreme. In this case
> neither the darkness or the iceberg were.

Hmm..