MS Estonia was a cruise ferry built in 1979 at the German shipyard Meyer Werft in Papenburg.
On 28th September 1994, the ship was crossing the Baltic Sea, en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden. She was carrying 989 passengers and crew.
The first sign of trouble was a strange sound of metal against metal heard, when the ship was on the outskirts of the Turku archipelago; but an investigation of the bow visor showed no obvious damage. The visor separated and the ship took on a heavy starboard list.
Just a moment later, an internal alarm for the crew was transmitted over the public address system. Soon the vessel lurched some 30 to 40 degrees to starboard, making it practically impossible to move about safely inside the ship. Doors and hallways became deadly pits.
Due to loss of power, she could not give her position, which delayed rescue operations somewhat. Out of a total of 989 passengers and crew on board 137 were saved.
Source: Wikipedia
