November 2002
Offspring of the Titanic identified

In 2002, more than 90 years after the shipwrecking, and for the first time in the Titanic’s history, science was used as the ultimate tool to discover the identity of one of 43 unidentified victims. Thanks to the Paleo-DNA Laboratory of Lakehead University (Ontario, Canada), which possesses one of the few existing machines in the world capable of extracting and amplifying degraded DNA from ancient samples, it was possible to identify a 13-month-old boy, discovered floating in a life preserver after the sinking of the Titanic. Buried in the Halifax Cemetery (Canada), his body was exhumed to establish his genetic profile. It was comparable to that of a Finish woman, the grand niece of the child’s mother. The researchers identified this family by the process of elimination after reviewing the ship’s passenger list. The young Finish child, who perished along with his mother and four brothers, was named Eino Vijami Panula.

(Sources: Alain Dufief)


Wednesday, 05 February 2003
The passengers of the Titanic died of hypothermia, not drowning

Most of the passengers of the Titanic, discovered floating with their life preservers on, apparently could have been saved. They, in fact, did not drown, but reached a state of hypothermia, according to a letter of an American physician to the medical journal, Lancet. The steamship, Carpathia, which reached the area of the disaster one hour and fifty minutes after the Titanic’s shipwrecking, only helped passengers found in the lifeboats and left for dead all those who were drifting in the ocean (at 2.2 °C), even if their heads were above the water, explains Dr M. R. Shetty of Mount Prospect, Illinois.

Since the sinking of the Titanic, at least 17 people who spent extended periods in freezing water, and were first considered drowned, were able to be revived using warming techniques and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as reported in a British weekly publication of 01 February 2002. "Complete recovery is possible, even after being submerged for 40 minutes," the report underscored.

The sinking of the British ocean liner, Titanic, on 15 April 1912, a ship widely believed unsinkable, resulted in more than 1,500 deaths; 711 people managed to escape that fate. The vessel transported 2,201 people, but was equipped with 3,560 life preservers, suggesting that everyone who died could have been wearing one. However, the 1,489 people who fell into the water were officially declared dead from drowning, asserted the American physician.

(Sources: AFP, Paris)