Der Spiegel has the best recap of the Concordia disaster that I have seen. Not only does it provide salient details of the accident. It also raises the question of the safety of these gargantuan cruise ships. Here are some of the points that are raised.
The current high-tech navigation system still has problems that need to be worked out. Furthermore, "the equipment can also be set to issue alarm signals to warn against shallows, a ship deviating from its course, other ships or danger zones -- producing a cacophony of noise that encourages some captains to simply ignore the signals."
The height of these ships can result in serious problems if something goes wrong. "For example, when a lot of water floods into the ship, it can slosh back and forth below deck and, because of the enormous weight of the water, push to the ship to the side."
Everything about these ships is huge - the ship itself, the number of passengers, the number of languages spoken. That size means problems when abnormal situations occur. "The bigger the ship, the more people crowd through the corridors during a major fire, the more confusing the jumble of languages becomes and the more difficult it is for the officers to control the ship.""Once the giant ships, with their thousands of passengers, capsize they quickly turn into death traps, because it makes it very difficult for the sailors to lower the lifeboats."
It's all about the money. Cruises are very big business now; about 19,000,000 people cruise every year and the market continues to expand. And competition increases. "that many cruise-ship companies are faced with bitter competition and gamble with the lives of their passengers as a result." More passengers usually means lower per-passenger costs as the size of the ships grows.
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