Irreversible loss

According to the company that carried out the final work on the ship in July; the wreckage has lost a significant portion of its guardrail. They can be called iconic without exaggeration, because they, or rather their remake, appeared in the famous scene of the movie “Titanic”, where the characters Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio stand on the deck at the bow of the ship.

According to the press release, the railings fell off sometime between 2022 and this summer as the ship continues to be subjected to relentless, immense pressure some 3,810 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

The bow section where the destroyed section was found / Photo: RMS Titanic, Inc.

The Titanic sank after striking an iceberg a few hundred miles southeast of Newfoundland on the morning of April 15, 1912. The disaster claimed more than 1,500 lives. Most of those who did not drown suffered heart attacks shortly after coming into contact with the cold water.

The ship broke in two as it sank and fell almost intact to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The wreckage site was discovered in 1985, and in 1994 a U.S. federal court granted RMS Titanic, Inc. “salvage rights.” It has been slowly collecting and photographing artifacts from the wreckage ever since.

Through the water layer you can see the railings at the bottom of the ocean / Photo: RMS Titanic, Inc

In a recent study crew rediscovered Diana of Versailles, a bronze statue that stood in the first-class cabinThe statue was moved during the disaster and fell into a large area of ​​wreckage from a sunken ship; it was discovered during an expedition in 1986. However, the statue’s location was later lost again, and this time the team is rediscovering it for real.

The bronze statue known as Diana of Versailles at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean / Photo: RMS Titanic, Inc.

Although much of the forward bulkhead remains in place, the destruction “irrevocably alters one of the most recognizable and iconic visual images of the Titanic,” the researchers wrote.

The demise of the “Titanic” is inevitable. It is being eaten away by underwater microbes and is under extreme pressure at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But with this inevitable process comes opportunity: As the RMS Titanic, Inc. website states, collapse sites on a sunken ship could provide “unimpeded access to the ship’s interior.”