• +
• -
• Text size

Follow the mail on Twitter.

It has been said that one can measure how civilized a culture is by the way its dead are  treated, which is why I was delighted to read that UNESCO have announced that the uncontrolled plundering and grave robbing of artifacts and personal effects from the wreck of the Titanic is to stop.

It’s taken a quarter of a century to finally acknowledge and take action on the basic human principle that the dead deserve to be treated with respect.

Every item taken from the Titanic which is sold, displayed or stored is simply a result of a macabre type of looting - which, for the best part of 25-years, we have watched without concern.

 The strange quandary about the rampant plundering of the Titanic is that nobody appears to have suffered the repercussions of being in possession of items taken from a mass grave - moreover, many of these articles have ended up in displays or in the hands of private collectors.

Hats, boots, handbags, watches, rings and thousands of other items  have been lifted to the surface to be displayed to the curios.

The unstoppable theft and ensuing destruction of the Titanic wreck by explorers is an international tragedy. The current condition of the Titanic wreck is deteriorating and very unstable, damage caused by so-called tourists will cause the ship to collapse to the ocean floor before 2040.

The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1514 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history - finally, we can let this mass grave and its unfortunate inhabitants rest in peace.