3x45' | History/People | HD

GBR 2021

Millstream

Thousands of shipwrecks lie on the sea floor, including the "Orient Queen", "Wakashio" and "MT Haven".
They are not only the remnants of major naval disasters, but they also pose a danger to their environment. We follow passionate divers in their adventure to rediscover the spirit of these tragedies, looking not only at the engineering of naval disasters, but also the environmental effects, their impact on the sea and the massive and costly operations to remove them.
ORIENT QUEEN: On the evening of August 4, 2020, warehouse 12 in the port of Beirut caught fire. Just ten minutes after the first explosion there was a very loud bang: a blast of ammonium nitrate swept away a quarter of the city and created a large white cloud. Sixteen ships were sunk by the explosion. The cruise ship Orient Queen was hit with full force by the shock wave and sank during the night. Two crew members died. Over the next few weeks, rescuers began cleaning up, removing as much steel as used in the Eiffel Tower and securing the engine rooms of sunken and damaged ships. The story centers on the story of the Orient Queen, her owner Hana Aboumehri and her hotel manager Vincenzo Orlandini, who knew the ship intimately and worked together to try to remove it.
WAKASHIO: On July 25, 2020, the Japanese-owned merchant ship Wakashio crashed into a coral reef off one of the most beautiful places on earth: Pointe d'Esney, Mauritius. The ship remained on the reef for a month before the Mauritian government asked for help to remove it.
MT HAVEN: The MT Haven was a 230,000-ton Very Large Crude Carrier that sank off the Italian coast, between Genoa and Arenzano on April 13, 1991. The shipwreck was considered one of the worst oil spills in history and certainly the worst in history. Mediterranean. Six sailors died in the shipwreck and subsequent fire. Only 80,000 of the 230,000 tons of crude oil had been transferred to the floating platform, leaving 140,000 tons burning or dissipating.