China’s TITANIC will be ready to “sail” in 2018

• The $125 million full-size replica of the doomed ship is now half complete in China as engineers ‘work around the clock’ on the ‘highly anticipated’ tourist attraction.

Titanic being built at China’s shipyard.

• Everything on the new ship would be an exact copy of the original, from the decoration to the food.
• Builders are said to be working around the clock on the iconic tourist attraction to finish the project by the end of the year.
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  The copy of the luxurious passenger ship, which sank in 1912 killing 1,500 people, will be a part of a grand theme park in Sichuan, south-west China, and will be painstakingly reproduced.
• A spokesperson of the resort said this week that the company is trying to build a wonderland which people around the world could relate to emotionally, according to the tourism authority of Suining.
• The spokesperson claims “massive and legendary ship” could provide tourists with “spiritual satisfaction,” It would also serve as a reminder of how the Titanic passengers helped each other while facing the disaster.

• The spokesperson said a Titanic-themed concert would be held in the theme park on September 28, featuring famous Chinese singers.

THE RMS TITANIC

The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Visitors watch the RMS Titanic sails from England.

• More than 1,500 people died when the ship, which was carrying 2,224 passengers and crew, sank under the command of Captain Edward Smith.
•  Some of the wealthiest people in the world were on board, including property tycoon John Jacob Astor IV, great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, founder of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim, the heir to his family’s mining business, also perished, along with Isidor Straus, the German-born co-owner of Macy’s department store.
• The ship was the largest afloat at the time and was designed in such a way that it was meant to be ‘unsinkable’. It had an on-board gym, libraries, swimming pool and several restaurants and luxury first-class cabins.

• There were not enough lifeboats on board for all the passengers due to out-of-date maritime safety regulations. After leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland before heading to New York.
• On April 14, 1912, four days into the crossing, she hit an iceberg at 11:40pm ship’s time. James Moody was on night watch when the collision happened and took the call from the watchman, asking him ‘What do you see?’ The man responded: ‘Iceberg, dead ahead.’
• By 2.20am, with hundreds of people still on board, the ship plunged beneath the waves, taking many, including Moody, with it.
• Despite repeated distress calls being sent out and flares launched from the decks, the first rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, arrived nearly two hours later, pulling more than 700 people from the water.
• It was not until 1985 that the wreck of the ship was discovered in two pieces on the ocean floor.