As authorities race to rescue five people on-board a missing tourist submersible bound for the Titanic wreck, questions have been raised about why a similar response wasn’t activated to help about 750 asylum seekers who went overboard when a fishing boat sank into the Mediterranean ocean last week.
“The hunt for five wealthy people in the Titanic sub is full of drama but this raises questions about why it receives greater prominence than the sinking of a migrant boat in the Med with an estimated 750 poor aboard, 81 confirmed dead so far,” Daily Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire tweeted.
Only about 100 people survived last week’s event, making the accident the deadliest disaster to occur in the sea, with people smugglers blamed and arrested following the incident which saw women and children lose their lives.
Most on-board were believed to be Pakistani nationals who fled the country due to its rapidly deteriorating economic climate.
It is understood authorities were repeatedly warned of the danger this boat faced prior to it setting sail, however they failed to act, which resulted in the boat sinking hours later.
The Greek Coast Guard has come under fire for how it handled the situation.
According to Human Rights’ Watch, more than 250,000 migrants and asylum seekers have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, with the efforts to find them minuscule compared to what’s being done to find OceanGate’s missing submersible, named Titan.
Five people are on the sub which vanished off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, while on a dive to the Titanic wreck.
The expedition costs about $370,000 ($US250,000) a ticket per person.
Leading the mission is OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61 and veteran French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77.
Three paying guests include British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman, 19.
The US and Canadian Coast Guard are both searching for the missing vessel and even France has sent a ship with a deep-sea diving robot to help.
Specialist vessels backed by deep-sea robots and search-and-rescue aircraft are combing a vast 40,000 sqkm up to a depth of 4km.
The minister responsible for the Canadian Coast Guard, Joyce Murray, said the mounting bills for the US-led mission were “irrelevant” as long as there was a chance of saving those on the sub, The Canadian Press reported.
“We are going to do everything that we can,” Murray said.
“We have a chance to find this submersible and bring people to the surface … I think there’s nothing that’s too much. These are human beings and we need to do what we can to save them.”
People have expressed their disappointment on Twitter about the huge difference in response to the two sea crisis.
One person detailed the migrant fishing boat disaster, asking “where’s the outrage?”
Another called it a “tale of two tragedies”.
“Three billionaires lost at sea because they chose to go on a Titanic adventure [and] 100s of refugees lost at sea because they were forced to flee war and persecution,” she wrote. “Who is getting the most attention?”
A third said: “Hard to reconcile the rush of rescue efforts to find billionaires who’ve paid $250,000 to see the Titanic and the stunning lack of rush to save refugees fleeing war and famine.”
“Amazing to see the difference in coverage when a billionaire is on a submarine versus hundreds of refugees drowning on a boat off Greece,” wrote a fourth.