The memory bud of Taiping steamer in Keelung

''Taiping'' was a Chinese steamer that sank after a collision with another vessel while en route from mainland

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

on 27 January 1949. With an estimated death toll of over 1,500 people, it ranks as one of the ten deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

Final voyage

''Taiping'' was packed to nearly twice her rated capacity, carrying over 1,000 refugees fleeing advancing

Chinese Communist The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

forces during the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

, when she departed

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

on 26 January 1949, bound for

Keelung Keelung () or Jilong () (; Hokkien POJ: '), officially known as Keelung City, is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. The city is a part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with its neighbors, New Taipe ...

.Letu, Xinji. 8 July 2011. "The Sinking of the Chinese Titanic" ''

Beijing Today ''Beijing Today'' () is a weekly English newspaper catering to expatriates and embassies that covers current events, art, cinema, music, dining, and shopping in Beijing. The newspaper is run by the publisher of Beijing Youth Daily. It is assigne ...

''. p. 14. Some estimates put the number of passengers on board at over 1,500, although the ship was only rated to carry 580 passengers. After midnight on 27 January 1949, ''Taiping'' was steaming at night with her lights out, owing to a

curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...

, when she collided with the smaller

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...

''Chienyuan'' near the

Zhoushan Archipelago Zhoushan , formerly romanized as Chusan, is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of H ...

. She sank, killing over 1,500 passengers and crew members.

Commemoration

''Taiping'', which made many journeys between mainland China and Taiwan before her tragic end, has been compared to the ''

Mayflower ''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, r ...

'' for her role in bringing Chinese immigrants to Taiwan. She has also been compared to , which sank in 1912, owing to the similar loss of life in her sinking. A memorial to the ship and those who died aboard her was established at

Keelung Harbor The Port of Keelung (), also known as Keelung Harbor, is located in the vicinity of Keelung City, Taiwan. It is operated by Taiwan International Ports Corporation, Taiwan's state-owned port management company. History The 1858 Treaty of Tientsin ...

naval base on Taiwan.

In popular culture

'' The Crossing'', a 2014 film directed by

John Woo John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (; born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly-influential figure in the action film genre. He was a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gun fu ...

, is about the sinking of ''Taiping''.

References

{{authority control 1949 in China Maritime incidents in 1949 Ships sunk in collisions Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean 1940s ships