Everyone and their mother knows the story of the Titanic, with or without watching James Cameron’s blockbuster movie.

The state-of-the-art luxury cruise liner, which was purportedly “unsinkable”, sank on April 14, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a tragedy that captured the world’s attention, with about 1,500 souls lost with the doomed ship.

While modern navigation technology and safety standards have made maritime disasters a rarity, many voyages in the past have resulted in immense tragedy and loss of life.

Here are five real stories of ships that met their untimely end amidst the merciless waves:

1. Medusa

On July 2, 1816, while sailing to the port of Saint-Louis in Senegal, the French frigate Medusa ran aground some 50 km away from the closest shore.

Passengers from the upper-class were given room on the lifeboats and any remaining passengers were forced onto a rickety raft.

Afraid that the survivors on the raft could reduce their own chances of survival, the lifeboat passengers cut the ropes towing the raft and rowed away to safety.

As the raft drifted helplessly at sea, the situation deteriorated severely as the passengers fought among themselves to stay alive.

By the time the raft was recovered, only 15 out of the 146 men onboard were found alive, with some passengers having resorted to cannibalism to survive.

2. HMS Birkenhead

Onboard the paddle steamer HMS Birkenhead on the evening of Feb 25, 1852, were 600 passengers. One-third were British army soldiers.

What was meant to be a short trip around the South African coast turned disastrous as the ship struck a rock and began to sink.

With only eight lifeboats for 200 people, clearly not everyone was going to survive the sinking.

Realising this, a regiment colonel ordered the troops to stand at attention and allow women and children to be evacuated first.

Some 450 people would die in the disaster with the chivalrous colonel among them.

Since then, “women and children first” remains a strong naval tradition.

3. SS Mont-Blanc

One of the largest man-made explosions in human history occurred on Dec 6, 1917 after a French ship loaded with explosives collided with another in the Canadian port of Halifax.

At the time, Halifax was serving as a wartime port with Canadian troops heading out to Europe to fight in the First World War.

On the morning of that fateful day, the Mont-Blanc, carrying 200 tonnes of TNT explosives and barrels of fuel, collided with the SS Imo.

The resulting fire ignited the explosives and at 9.05am, 1,500 people were killed instantly as the surrounding neighbourhood was flattened and the ships disintegrated.

Temperatures of the explosion are estimated to have reached nearly 5,000°C and a gun barrel of the Mont-Blanc was later found flung nearly 4 km inland.

A nearby Native American settlement was also washed away by a tsunami with waves as high as 15 metres.

4. MV Dona Paz

The deadliest peacetime naval disaster of history took place on Dec 21, 1987 when the Filipino ferry Dona Paz was en route to Manila.

Due to rough seas, the ferry soon fatally collided with MT Vector, an oil tanker, which started a fire that spread to both ships.

While legally allowed to carry 1,550 people at any given time, the Dona Paz had been illegally carrying over 4,000 people, many whom were returning home for Christmas.

Panic ensued as there were not enough lifejackets for everyone and the sea itself had been set alight due to oil leaking from the Vector.

Only 25 people would be found alive and rescued by ships arriving at the scene.

5. MV Sewol

Another naval tradition states that a captain should either stay with his ship or go down with it.

Captain Lee Joon-seok of the MV Sewol made a mockery of the tradition on April 16, 2014, when he was the first to flee his ship when it started to sink off the South Korean coast.

The Sewol had been illegally overloaded with cargo and when making an overly sharp turn in strong currents, became unbalanced to one side.

Before rushing off to jump into a lifeboat, Lee had issued an order to the passengers, nearly half of whom were high school students, to stay where they were.

The order ultimately spelt doom for most of the passengers as the ship soon sank with 299 people trapped inside their cabins.

The disaster was particularly tragic as the final phone calls made by the students to their parents grew increasingly heartbreaking as water began to flood into the ship.