Reading these disaster transcripts always haunts me. But it's also nice to see strangers rally to help each other. There is no discussion of cost, delay, or hardship.
It seems very weird to me that ultimately, according to Wikipedia, they buried he ship with pebbles. Why was this done, I thought most sunken ships were left alone.
First, according to maritime law it's your responsibility to assist when a mayday is called.
second, the sea is one of the few places where there's still some sort of non-monetary, honour-based system where people will help each other if needed. I've personally helped folks in trouble with risk to my own boat, and I'd expect someone else to do the same if I was in a tight spot. It probably has to do with the environment - the sea is very lonely. If you are having an emergency there will be no police, ambulance or firetruck coming. You have to fix it yourself. If you're lucky another ship is close by.
It is an ancient tradition, codified in SOLAS, that mariners help those threatened by the sea. You do it, because it will be you that needs help sometime.
The wreck is covered with pebbles at great cost to prevent anyone diving on the wreck to investigate what happened. Then no one can prove anything and everything remains just speculation. Ban any diving, threaten anyone diving the wreck with arrest and then just completely ignore the relatives' calls for an independent investigation.
Then in this information vacuum ordinary people do the rest by alleging anyone who questions the official line is a "conspiracy theorist".
I mean science can answer so many questions, but only when you have trace evidence to examine.
There have been investigations and video inspection of the wreck. "Everyone" agrees that the official explanation is correct.
The reason for covering the wreck is that the disaster was a major national catastrophe; if 800+ hadn't died it would never have been considered.
Says Wikipedia:
"In the aftermath of the disaster, many relatives of the deceased demanded that their loved ones be raised from international waters and given a land burial. Demands were also made that the entire ship be raised so that the cause of the disaster could be discovered by detailed inspection.[27][28]
Citing the practical difficulties and the moral implications of raising decaying bodies from the sea floor (the majority of the bodies were never recovered), and fearing financial burden of lifting the entire hull to the surface and the salvage operation, the Swedish government suggested burying the whole ship in situ with a shell of concrete.[29][30] As a preliminary step, thousands of tons of pebbles were dropped on the site.[28] The Estonia Agreement 1995, a treaty among Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia and the United Kingdom, declared sanctity over the site, prohibiting their citizens from even approaching the wreck.[31]"
I still don't understand why it was burried just because it was a tragedy. Was there some practical concern that bodies might slowly creep out of the wreck onto the surface or that people would loot it?
It's lying at 50-70 metres deep. If it is not recovered, the "grave" is open so to speech for curious divers, and that was very much not desired. Either recover it or bury it.
The Titanic was different; it lies below 4000 metres of water.
I saw the thing about the conspiracy theory, but is this effort partly because of the depth of the debris? It seems like lots of ships have sunk, and not many of them have been covered in pebbles or had a diving ban.
Hiding something does not equal a conspiracy theory. I mean, do you believe that behind every door there is a conspiracy? Do clothes equal a conspiracy to hide the human body? Is covering a seed with soil a conspiracy to hide seeds? If you think yes, than please tell us what you think a conspiracy is. Or are people just trying to protect property, keep warm and grow plants? Maybe they are conspiring to protect property with carpenters?
In this case, I think its reasonable to thing that covering up the ship and bodies are to protect dignity.
Hiding something does not equal a conspiracy theory. But it also doesn't refute it either. It cannot be used to comment on it at all.
Your clothes analogy is a straw man. People conspire all the time. There are many, many instances of people conspiring. There are many instances of conspiracy theories thought to be rubbish that turned out to be true. Watergate, anyone? Or more recently, if you had suggested that the NSA had tapped every major network in the world and created viruses that burrow down into the chips themselves and so on, you'd have been called a conspiracy theorist. Then came Edward Snowden.
Yes, covering with pebbles doesn't provide any evidence for a conspiracy theory. But equally your argument provides no refutation that it's a conspiracy.
Science however can offer concrete facts. For example: laboratory tests on debris recovered illegally from Estonia's bow yielded trace evidence of an explosion.
So how do you review that? By performing independent tests on other salvaged material. Which could be quite simple to do, if it wasn't covered in stones. Just think, if it wasn't covered in stones, you could recover some of the wreck, test it and show that there is no trace evidence of any explosions.
Now that we only have that trace evidence, I suppose we just have to be content with the idea that it was sunk with an explosion. Unless you have some kind of evidence that refutes it?
You may think the reverse, that this evidence cant be trusted, and that the official line should be trusted. But you would be wrong. That is unscientific. You would have to prove that the work done by Jutta Rabe is false by doing your own lab work and making your own observations.
Interesting how the pebbles stop all further investigation, isn't it? But I know, I know. Governments would never do that. They are so trustworthy. They never lie. etc. etc.
Good luck with your understanding of geopolitics, clothes and carpentry...
It's because it's a site for a major tragedy for several countries and we are not keen to have Americans coming and digging for souvenirs there. Because you are dumb like that.
Sorry. This comments seems inappropriate there are lots of shipwrecks that aren't burried and I don't think there is a reason to say Americans are dumb and want to loot tragic shipwrecks.
Well about a thousand people's lives were at risk, about 850 of them were lost. If you're in the waters nearby and asked to get people out of the water onto your boat, I can't imagine a discussion of cost.
I mean I hear you, it's a wonderful thing, but I don't see how it's in any way strange or surprising.
But yeah, definitely haunting stuff. Recordings from astronauts always get me, like Komarov's, or the supposed one of a female astronaut in 1961 both during failed re-entry.
It seems very weird to me that ultimately, according to Wikipedia, they buried he ship with pebbles. Why was this done, I thought most sunken ships were left alone.