WASHINGTON: Researchers have found the wreckage of the US warship Indianapolis, which was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in the final days of World War Two, more than 18,000 feet (5.5 kilometers) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the Navy said on Saturday.
The cruiser was returning from its mission to deliver components for the atomic bomb that would soon be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima when it was fired upon in the North Pacific Ocean by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945.
It sunk in 12 minutes, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington. No distress signal was sent. About 800 of the 1,196 crew members aboard survived the sinking, but only 316 were rescued alive five days later, with the rest lost to exposure, dehydration, drowning and sharks.
After a Navy historian unearthed new information in 2016 about the warship’s last movements that pointed to a new search area, a team of civilian researchers led by Paul Allen, a Microsoft Corp. co-founder, spent months searching in a 600-square-mile (1,500-square-kilometer) patch of ocean.
With a vessel rigged with equipment that can reach some of the deepest ocean floors, members of Allen’s team found the wreckage somewhere in the Philippine Sea on Friday, Allen said in a statement on his website. The statement said the Navy had asked Allen to keep the precise location confidential.
Allen said that the discovery was a humbling experience and a means of honoring sailors he saw as playing a vital role in ending World War Two. “While our search for the rest of the wreckage will continue, I hope everyone connected to this historic ship will feel some measure of closure at this discovery so long in coming,” he said.
Identification was easier than in some deep-sea expeditions: some of the exposed wreck was clearly marked with Indianapolis signage, according to photographs shared by Allen and the Navy.
“It is exceedingly rare you find the name of the ship on a piece of the wreckage,” Paul Taylor, a spokesman for the Naval History and Heritage Command, said in a telephone interview. “If that’s not Indianapolis then I don’t know what is.”
The Navy said it had plans to honor the 22 survivors from the Indianapolis still alive along with the families of the ship’s crew.
US warship Indianapolis found 18,000 feet deep in Pacific Ocean
US warship Indianapolis found 18,000 feet deep in Pacific Ocean
WHO warns of health risks from ‘black rain’ in Iran
- “The black rain and the acidic rain coming with it is indeed a danger for the population, respiratory mainly,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva, adding that Iran had advised people to stay indoors
GENEVA: The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the “black rain” falling in Iran after strikes on oil facilities could cause respiratory problems, and it backed Iran’s advisory urging people to remain indoors.
The UN health agency, which has an office in Iran and works with authorities on health emergencies, said it has received multiple reports of oil-laden rain this week.
HIGHLIGHT
Tehran was choked in black smoke on Monday after an oil refinery was hit, in an escalation in strikes on Iran’s domestic energy supplies as part of the US-Israeli campaign.
Tehran was choked in black smoke on Monday after an oil refinery was hit, in an escalation in strikes on Iran’s domestic energy supplies as part of the US-Israeli campaign.
“The black rain and the acidic rain coming with it is indeed a danger for the population, respiratory mainly,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva, adding that Iran had advised people to stay indoors.
Asked whether the WHO backed that advice, he said: “Given what is at risk right now, the oil storage facilities, the refineries that have been struck, triggering fires, bringing serious air quality concerns, that is definitely a good idea.”
One video sent to Reuters by a WHO staff member showed what they said was a cleaner mopping up black liquid at its office entrance in Tehran on March 8.
