We will talk about facts. Of facts that happen simultaneously.
It is four in the morning on Sunday, June 18, when the submersible Titan begins its dive towards the remains of the Titanic, at a depth of 3,960 meters, where it sank in 1912. Five people on board. Four have paid 250,000 dollars each (about 229,000 euros) to participate in the expedition: Hamish Harding, 58-year-old British explorer; Pakistani businessman Shazada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, and Paul Henri Nargolet, 76, who has led half a dozen expeditions to the remains. In command, Stockton Rush, 61 years old, engineer and executive of OceanGate, a company that manages trips. An hour and 45 minutes later contact with the submersible is lost. All five die when the ship explodes. Remains of the Titan were discovered on Thursday, on the sea bed, 500 meters from the Titanic. Ships and planes from the United States, Canada, Norway and France are scouring the area in hopes of finding the bodies of the dead.
The Sasemar 101 aircraft of the Spanish Maritime Rescue located on Tuesday 20 June at 19:53 a pneumatic boat with 61 immigrants on board that had set sail from Cap Bojador (Western Sahara), under Moroccan control. Warned the cargo ship Navios Azure, with the flag of the Marshall Islands, deviates from the route to guard the zodiac, which is in waters shared between Spain and Morocco. This country also receives the information, which must coordinate the rescue operation. Twenty-four immigrants are saved and returned to the port of origin, but the other 37 – including a boy and a young girl – die 80 miles from the coast of Gran Canaria and 40 from that of the Western Sahara. They had been waiting to be rescued for more than 12 hours; neither Spain nor Morocco went to help them. Their names are not known, nor how much they paid the shepherd mafias to board them – 1,500, 2,000, 3,000 euros? – and try to get a better life.
Two facts, two tragedies that happen at sea. Two worlds in one world. And many things to think about.
