London (AFP)
The wreck of the famous Titanic will be protected from tourists and unwanted explorers under an unprecedented treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom coming into force on Tuesday, said British Minister for the Sea Nusrat Ghani.
"This crucial agreement with the United States to preserve the wreck means that it will now be treated with the sensitivity and respect due to the last remains of 1,500 people," the minister said in a statement during a visit to Belfast (Northern Ireland), where the liner was built.
The treaty, signed in 2003 by the United Kingdom, comes into force after being ratified last November by the head of American diplomacy, Mark Pompeo.
It allows the two countries "to grant or refuse licenses authorizing to enter the wreck or to extract objects from it", according to the press release.
The wreck, which is in international waters, has so far been protected only by the Unesco Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.
Leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912 to reach New York, the gigantic ocean liner, the largest in the world at the time of its launch, had tragically sunk after having struck an iceberg five days later. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, nearly 1,500 had died in the tragedy.
Since the discovery in 1985 of its wreck 650km from the Canadian coast, by 4,000 meters deep in the international waters of the Atlantic Ocean, it has been beset by treasure seekers and tourists.
After an expedition to the wreck in 2012, scientists had noted "recent damage to the hull of the Titanic by submarines". They had also alerted against "disturbing quantities of waste and debris thrown by boats on the surface or abandoned near the wreck", the International Maritime Organization worried in a report "about the impacts already visible, which dishonor this place of burial ".
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