Titanic<\/em> will be completely underwater within a couple of hours, if not sooner.<\/p>\n15 April 1912<\/h3>\n 00:05 |\u00a0<\/strong>Smith orders the lifeboats to be readied in order for as many people to be evacuated as possible. Stewards move speedily though the ship, banging on cabin doors to rouse the occupants, whether crew or fare-paying passengers, since Titanic<\/em> has not been fitted with a public-address system. The evacuation is an unequal one. The ratio of stewards to passengers in the first-class accommodation means the latter have great assistance from the staff, helping them to dress and escorting them up onto deck. In the more populous third-class accommodation, passengers are largely left to manage their own passage from cabin to deck, with directions from stewards. In the first-class lounge, the band play to entertain those waiting for the lifeboats.<\/p>\n00:20 |\u00a0<\/strong>With passengers instructed to put on lifebelts, the loading of the lifeboats gets underway. Titanic has 20 lifeboats in all, with a combined capacity of 1,178 \u2013 little more than half the number of people on board. The ship had been designed to carry 64 lifeboats, but the White Star Line company had complied with the current regulations and only fitted fewer than a third of them. Lifeboats on a properly subdivided ship like Titanic<\/em> in 1912 were intended to ferry passengers from the stricken vessel to a nearby rescue ship, and uninterrupted views of the ocean from the main deck were deemed to be more pleasing to the eye of its passengers, rather than rows of lifeboats. With this insufficient number of lifeboats, Captain Smith explains the priority to First Officer William Murdoch and Second Officer Charles Lightoller: \u201cput the women and children in and lower away\u201d.<\/p>\n Women and Children First, by Fortunino Matania, was painted soon after the disaster. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nBy now, several vessels have received the distress signals sent by radio operators Phillips and Bride. Many are too distant to offer assistance, but Carpathia<\/em> \u2013 another liner belonging to the rival Cunard company \u2013 is comparatively close at 58 nautical miles away. \u201cCome at once. We have struck a berg.\u201d Carpathia<\/em> immediately changes course, but it will still take at least three hours to arrive. Exactly what its crew will encounter when they eventually arrive remains unclear.<\/p>\n00:25 |\u00a0<\/strong>The grim mathematics are inescapable. By now, 45 minutes after the collision, 13,700 tonnes of icy water have poured into a ship that\u2019s only capable of pumping out 1,700 tonnes per hour. Titanic\u2019s<\/em> fate is sealed as the much nearer Californian<\/em>, with its radio operator asleep, does not understand the ship\u2019s plight and fails to come to its aid.<\/p>\n00:45 |\u00a0<\/strong>The first Titanic<\/em> lifeboat, No 7, is lowered onto the ocean and starts rowing away from the stricken ship. There are believed to be just 27 people aboard it, 38 fewer than its capacity. A significant number of first-class passengers refuse to board the lifeboats. Among them is the industrialist millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim who, along with his valet, removes his life-vest and changes into evening wear, including a top hat. \u201cWe have dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen\u201d, he is reported to have said.<\/p>\n Wealthy businessman Benjamin Guggenheim perished along with his valet, having changed into evening clothes so they could \u201cgo down like gentlemen\u201d. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nOthers don\u2019t have an option. Very few third-class passengers will make it onto the deck, let alone find a seat in a lifeboat. Indeed, many third-class passengers travelling as families choose to stick together and trust the ship, rather than have the women and girls risk their lives on the ocean at night in a small lifeboat, and abandon the male members of their family \u2013 including boys of 13, who are regarded as adults in 1912.<\/p>\n
00:55 |<\/strong>\u00a0Lifeboat No 7 is far from the only underpopulated craft; No 6 is thought to have only 23 people on board. More lifeboats are lowered every few minutes, rarely at capacity. Lifeboat No 1 carries just a dozen passengers. Early lifeboats are sent unfilled due to the initial reluctance of passengers nearby to enter them, and because the crew\u2019s main objective is to get all the boats launched before Titanic sinks with its lifeboats still attached to the ship.<\/p>\n A still from James Cameron\u2019s 1997 blockbuster, Titanic, showing the urgent scramble for lifeboats. (Image by Alamy)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n01:30 |\u00a0<\/strong>After the first hour following the collision, the downward angle of the ship had remained relatively steady at around five degrees, offering a modicum of reassurance to both passengers and crew that they might be rescued in time. However, by 01:30, that angle has increased to 10 degrees as Titanic continues to take on water at an alarming rate. A group of male passengers tries to rush Lifeboat No 14 as it\u2019s being lowered with 40 people already on board. Three shots fired in the air by Fifth Officer Harold Lowe manages to halt the melee.<\/p>\n01:35 |\u00a0<\/strong>At the wireless operators station, an ominous message is sent over the ship\u2019s radio and picked up by Carpathia<\/em>: \u201cEngine room getting flooded.\u201d Ten minutes later, the update is even more alarming: \u201cEngine room full up to boilers.\u201d It will be the final intelligible message sent over Titanic\u2019s<\/em> radio system.<\/p>\n Captain Stanley Lord (second left) of SS Californian, pictured with his senior officers. (Photo by Daily Mirror\/Mirrorpix\/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n02:05 |<\/strong>\u00a0The last of the 20 lifeboats \u2013 collapsible D \u2013 is lowered from the ship. The last few lifeboats have been closer to capacity now that the fate of the \u201cunsinkable\u201d ship is clear to all left on board.<\/p>\n02:15 |\u00a0<\/strong>Titanic\u2019s<\/em> downward angle gets much steeper as water pours in through open port holes and deck hatches into areas of the ship previously unflooded. A wave caused by the rapid sinking of Titanic<\/em> causes people to be swept into the ocean. The front funnel collapses and several passengers are crushed to death.<\/p>\n02:18 |<\/strong>\u00a0The ship\u2019s lights go out and the frantic scene is now plunged into darkness. Under the weight of the stern, which is now lifted out of the water by the sinking bow, Titanic<\/em> begins to split into two.<\/p>\n02:20 |<\/strong>\u00a0The world\u2019s most modern ocean-going liner completely disappears under the surface of the Atlantic. \u201cThere is no danger that Titanic<\/em> will sink,\u201d White Star Line vice-president Phillip Franklin reassures the waiting press, after news of the collision first reaches New York. But those who have survived being thrown into the water will perish, many from cardiac arrest, within half an hour. Second Officer Lightoller, the most senior crew member to survive the disaster after managing to cling onto an upturned lifeboat, will later describe the sensation of plunging into the freezing waters as being akin to \u201ca thousand knives\u201d penetrating his body.<\/p>\n02:26 |\u00a0<\/strong>The bow and the stern, now separated, reach the seabed, having rapidly corkscrewed to a depth of nearly 4,000 metres in just six minutes.<\/p>\n
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