Ned Kelly Last updated 5 days ago

[edit] Aftermath

According to an eyewitness report, there "were many pathetic scenes" when Titanic's survivors disembarked at New York.

Even before Carpathia arrived in New York, efforts were getting underway to retrieve the dead. Four ships chartered by the White Star Line succeeded in retrieving 328 bodies; 119 were buried at sea, while the remaining 209 were brought ashore to the Canadian port of Halifax, Nova Scotia,^[183] where 150 of them were buried.^[187] Memorials were raised in various places – New York, Washington, Southampton, Liverpool, Belfast and Lichfield, among others^[188] – and ceremonies were held on both sides of the Atlantic to commemorate the dead and raise funds to aid the survivors.^[189] The bodies of most of Titanic's victims were never recovered, and the only evidence of their deaths was found 73 years later among the debris on the seabed: pairs of shoes lying side by side, where bodies had once lain before eventually decomposing in the sea waters.^[42]

The prevailing public reaction to the disaster was one of shock and outrage, directed against a number of issues and people: why were there so few lifeboats? Why had Ismay saved his own life when so many others died? Why did Titanic proceed into the icefield at full speed?^[190] The outrage was driven not least by the survivors themselves; even while they were aboard Carpathia on their way to New York, Beesley and other survivors determined to "awaken public opinion to safeguard ocean travel in the future" and wrote a public letter to The Times urging changes to maritime safety.^[191]

In places closely associated with Titanic, there was a deep sense of grief. Crowds of weeping women, the wives, sisters and mothers of crew members, gathered outside the White Star Line's offices in Southampton to find out what had happened to their loved ones – most of whom had perished.^[192] Churches in Belfast were packed and shipyard workers wept in the streets after the news was announced. The ship had been a symbol of Belfast's industrial achievements and there was not only a sense of grief but also of guilt, as those who had built Titanic came to feel that they had in some way been responsible for her loss.^[193]

In the aftermath of the sinking, public inquiries were set up in Britain and the United States. The US inquiry began on 19 April under the chairmanship of Senator William Alden Smith,^[194] while the British inquiry commenced in London under Lord Mersey on 2 May 1912.^[195] They reached broadly similar conclusions: the regulations on the number of lifeboats that ships had to carry were out of date and inadequate;^[196] Captain Smith had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings;^[197] the lifeboats had not been properly filled or crewed; and the collision was the direct result of steaming into a danger area at too high a speed.^[196] Captain Lord of the Californian was strongly criticised by both inquiries for failing to render assistance to Titanic.^[198]

The disaster led to major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that radio equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock.^[199] An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonised internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea; both measures are still in force today.^[200]

Titanic's sinking became a cultural phenomenon, commemorated by numerous artists, film-makers, writers, composers, musicians and dancers from the time immediately after the sinking to the present day.^[201] On 1 September 1985 a joint US-French expedition led by Robert Ballard found the wreck of Titanic,^[202] and the ship's rediscovery led to an explosion of interest in Titanic's story.^[203] In 1997, James Cameron's eponymous film became the first movie ever to take $1 billion at the box office, and the film's soundtrack became the best selling soundtrack recording of all time.^[204] Numerous expeditions have been launched to film the wreck and, controversially, to salvage objects from the debris field.^[200]

Although many artefacts have been recovered and conserved, the wreck itself is steadily decaying, as iron-eating microbes consume the hull at an estimated rate of 100 kilograms (220 lb) a day.^[205] In time, Titanic's structure will collapse into a pile of iron and steel fragments. Eventually she will be reduced to a patch of rust on the seabed, with the remaining scraps of the ship's hull mingled with her more durable fittings.^[206]

[edit] Casualties and survivors

Further information: Passengers of the RMS Titanic and Crew of the RMS Titanic

The number of casualties of the sinking is unclear, due to a number of factors, including confusion over the passenger list, which included some names of people who cancelled their trip at the last minute, and the fact that several passengers travelled under aliases for various reasons and were double-counted on the casualty lists.^[207] The death toll has been put at between 1,490 and 1,635 people.^[208] The figures below are from the British Board of Trade report on the disaster.^[209]

Passengers	Category	Number aboard	Number saved	Number lost	Percentage saved	Percentage lost
Children	First Class	6	5	1	83.4%	16.6%
Children	Second Class	24	24	0	100%	0%
Children	Third Class	79	27	52	34%	66%
Women	First Class	144	140	4	97%	3%
Women	Second Class	93	80	13	86%	14%
Women	Third Class	165	76	89	46%	54%
Women	Crew	23	20	3	87%	13%
Men	First Class	175	57	118	33%	67%
Men	Second Class	168	14	154	8%	92%
Men	Third Class	462	75	387	16%	84%
Men	Crew	885	192	693	22%	78%
Total		2224	710	1514	32%	68%

Less than a third of those aboard Titanic survived the disaster. Some survivors died shortly afterwards; injuries and the effects of exposure caused the deaths of several of those brought aboard Carpathia.^[210] Of the groups shown in the table, 49% of the children, 26% of the female passengers, 82% of the male passengers and 78% of the crew died. The figures show stark differences in the survival rates of the different classes aboard Titanic. Although only 3 percent of first-class women were lost, 54% of those in third class died. Similarly, five of six first-class and all second-class children survived, but 52 of the 79 in third class perished.^[211] The only first-class child to perish was Loraine Allison, aged 2. Proportionately, the heaviest losses were suffered by the second-class men, of whom 92% died. Additionally, among the pets brought aboard three survived the sinking.^[212]

[edit] See also

Disasters portal

• 
  List of disasters in Great Britain and Ireland
  

[edit] Notes

1. 
   ^ ^{a b} At the time of the collision, Titanic's clocks were set to 2 hours 2 minutes ahead of Eastern Time Zone (UTC−05:00) and 2 hours 58 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time.^[1] In other words, her time was close to UTC-3 (only 2 minutes ahead).
   
2. 
   ^ Radio telegraphy was known as "wireless" in the British English of the period.
   
3. 
   ^ Despite later myth, featured for example in the 1997 film Titanic, the ship Titanic was not attempting to set a transatlantic speed record; the White Star Line had made a conscious decision not to compete with their rivals Cunard on speed, but instead to focus on size and luxury.^[26]
   
4. 
   ^ An incident confirmed this philosophy while Titanic was under construction: the White Star liner Republic was involved in a collision and sank. Even though she did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers, they were all saved because the ship was able to stay afloat long enough for them to be ferried to ships coming to assist.^[82]
   

The Tibetan Monk (Palden Gyatso)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palden_Gyatso

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Palden Gyatso (born 1933 in Panam, Tibet) is a Buddhist monk who was born in Tibet in 1933. During the Chinese invasion in Tibet he was arrested and he spent 33 years in Chinese prison. After his release in 1992 he went to Dharamsala, (North India) in exile. Since then he is practicing his Buddhistic religion as a free monk.

Life

Palden Gyatso was born in the Tibetan village Panam in 1933. This place is located at Nyangchu river between Gyantse and Shigatse. In 1943 he entered Gadong monastery as a novice monk. During the Chinese invasion he was nominated as a fully ordained monk of the Gelug school. Later he studied in Drepung monastery which is close to Lhasa.

After the Tibetan uprising in 1959, Palden Gyatso was arrested by Chinese officials. He spent the following 33 years in different Chinese prisons and labour camps. He was forced to participate in barbarous reeducation classes and was brutally tortured, leading to irreversible physical damage. During this time, he continued to abide by the Dharma (Buddha's teachings).

1992 Palden Gyatso was released. He escaped to Dharamsala in India, the place of the Tibetan exile government. There he wrote his autobiography Fire Under The Snow which has been translated in many other languages.

During his following visits in America and Europe he became politically active as an opposer of the Chinese occupation in Tibet and as a witness of many years under Chinese confinement. In 1995 he was heard by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

These days Palden Gyatso is living in Dharamsala and following his Buddhistic studies.

www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Tibetan-Monk-Palden-Gyatso/dp/0802116213

The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk (Hardcover)
by Palden Gyatso (Author), Tsering Shakya

If you've ever wondered what it's like to walk in the shoes of a Tibetan monk, you're in for a shocker. Palden Gyatso followed his heart into the monastery at the age of 10 to study under his uncle, also a monk. By his mid-20s, when he should have been preparing for a higher degree, he instead found himself behind the bars of a Chinese communist prison. For the next 30 years, he would endure interrogations, deprivation, starvation, beatings, and psychological torture. When he was finally released in 1992, he fled the country, managing to smuggle out not only the names of his fellow prisoners but Chinese instruments of torture to show the world.

With the help of translator Tsering Shakya, Palden Gyatso has crafted his story into a fluid yet surprisingly dispassionate account of his time in prison. Still, it is almost impossible not to be swept along on waves of pity, horror, and compassion as he suffers unspeakably at the hands of his tormentors. To understand the plight of one Tibetan monk is to step behind the eyes of an entire people. --Brian Bruya
The New York Times Book Review, Judith Shapiro
Tibet's suffering exerts a profound claim on the world's compassion, but this suffering is often romanticized by outsiders. With this memoir by a "simple monk" who spent 33 years in prisons and labor camps for resisting the Chinese, a rare Tibetan voice is heard. Palden Gyatso's Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk ... provides a devastating rebuttal to China's reports of having improved the lives of Tibetans, and a deeply disturbing look at terror and repression within the Chinese prison system.

This review is from: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk (Paperback)

Ven. Palden Gyatso was the longest held prisoner in Chinese camps since the occupation of Tibet. This memoir, told in clean, plain prose (a kudo to the translator) is horrifying in its matter-of-fact detailing of the horrors of Tibetan prisons. The graphic descriptions of the tortures that Ven. Gyataso endured left me queasy, and yet a thread of hope continue throughout the book. From group re-education to starvation to penal camp labor and extreme torture [one of which left him, unconscious for an indeterminate time, in a pool of blood, urine, faeces and 20 of his teeth], Ven. Palden Gyatso somehow emerged from this, then escaped to Dharmasala, India the home of the Dalai lama (the story of his meeting the Dalai lama and the frontpiece poem are lovely). I was left with the feeling of awe, actual awe at this man, and how he emerged WITHOUT BITTERNESS. Astonishing. Read this book. Give it to another. It, like its author, is extraordinary

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