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In 1969, a ship sank off Australia, killing 21 crew members. The vessel’s final resting place remained a mystery — until now.
Australian scientists have pinpointed the final resting place of a notorious shipwreck, which has gone down in history as one of the nation’s worst maritime disasters outside of war, officials announced Thursday. The MV Noongah has finally been found more than a half century after it was lost at sea.
A collaborative effort aimed to locate the sunken freighter by analyzing underwater video footage and mapping out the sea floor off of New South Wales, through a process called bathymetry, said Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. One of the agency’s research vessels investigated the wreck in June and determined that, after almost 55 years, the ship was largely intact and situated in an upright position at the bottom of the ocean, roughly 550 feet below the surface. A dive team then explored the wreck up-close to confirm its identity.
The Noongah, a huge freighter transporting steel between Newcastle and Townsville along Australia’s eastern coast, sank in rough seas on Aug. 25, 1969, killing 21 of the 26 crew members on board. The remains of 20 of the dead were never recovered, and questions persist to this day as to why the ship went down all those years ago.
CSIRO
Samir Alhafith, who was part of the mission to find the wreck, said in a statement that knowing the ship’s location may provide opportunities to answer some of those questions. He noted that the advanced technology necessary to find the Noongah did not exist until recently.
“Not only is the discovery of these significant wrecks important for the surviving sailors and families of those that perished during the tragedy but also it allows us to investigate the mystery behind the sinking,” Alhafith said.
Others involved in the project to locate the Noongah said they hope knowing where it is will provide a level of closure to those who knew the crew members lost at sea.
CSIRO
“This tragedy is still very much in the memory of many in the community and we offer our condolences to families and descendants of the crew who were lost,” said Matt Kimber, of CSIRO, in a statement. “Our thoughts are also with the surviving crew members from MV Noongah, and we hope that knowing the resting place of the vessel brings some closure for all.”
On the day the Noongah went down, its crew tried for hours to keep the vessel afloat before eventually abandoning it about 30 minutes before the ship sank completely, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The radio operator sent out a distress signal around then, which prompted what’s remembered as one of the largest search and rescue operations ever carried out in Australia.
More than six hours after their ship sank, a Japanese tanker called Koyo Maru rescued two surviving crew members — John Wirth, an engineer, and Anwyl Durose, the assistant steward — from two individual life rafts. About six hours after that, a merchant vessel rescued three other men who had survived the seas by holding onto a plank of wood. Another crew member was later found dead.
Australian National Maritime Museum via CSIRO
Wirth told the Australian broadcaster in an interview that he didn’t know what had caused the Noongah to sink.
“All I know is the ship was listing and I was called down below and we were trying to correct the list, but we weren’t having much success and it was getting worse all the time,” Wirth told the outlet.
Earlier this year, officials announced the discovery of the wreck of the coal steamship SS Nemesis off Australia’s coast, more than a century after it sank. All 32 people on board were killed.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
