Section:GDN 1N PaGe:40 Edition Date:190830 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/8/2019 20:38 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Friday 30 Aug ust 2019
(^40) World
Cabins on
the lower deck
of HMS Terror
explored by
a remotely
operated
submersible
contained
bottles, plates
and other items
well preserved in
the dark and icy
ocean depths
▲ Sir John Franklin was among 129
crew who died off King William Island
Fierce fi ghting between ex-allies
as stakes rise in battle for Aden
Bethan McKernan
Middle East correspondent
Intense fighting has broken out
between former allies in a battle
for control of Yemen’s interim capi-
tal, Aden, threatening to open a new
front in the war and raising fears for
the safety of civilians.
Forces loyal to the Yemeni govern-
ment were hit by airstrikes yesterday
as they travelled towards the southern
city, killing at least 30 troops, a govern-
ment commander said.
He did not say who carried out the
strikes, but a coalition led by Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
is the only party to the four-year-old
confl ict with airpower.
▼ HMS Erebus in the Ice, by the Belgian
painter François-Étienne Musin,
imagines the demise of Franklin’s voyage
PHOTOGRAPH: NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM
Leyland Cecco
Toronto
Evidence recovered from beneath the
bitter cold of Canada’s Arctic Ocean
will shed new light on the fi nal days of
the ill-fated expedition by the British
polar explorer Sir John Franklin, who
disappeared with his crew in 1845.
Parks Canada and Inuit researchers
announced on Wednesday the results
of a study of HMS Terror – including
“ground breaking” new images from
within the incredibly well-preserved
ship – and raised the possibility that
logs and maps have remained intact
and legible after nearly 170 years
beneath the sea.
Over several weeks in early August,
the researchers launched 3D-mapping
technology to survey the wreck site
off the coast of King William Island in
Nunavut. For the fi rst time , the team
entered the ship with a remotely oper-
ated submersible. Nearly 90% of the
lower deck – including the areas where
the crew ate and slept – was explored.
In total, the expedition was able to
study 20 separate rooms.
“The impression we witnessed
when exploring HMS Terror is of a
ship only recently deserted by its crew,
seemingly forgotten by the passage of
time ,” said Ryan Harris, a senior arche-
ologist for Parks Canada.
In 1845, HMS Erebus and HMS Ter-
ror set sail from England in search of
the coveted Northwest Passage, a nav-
igable route to Asia from the Atlantic
Ocean, over the north and west of
North America. But the famed expe-
dition ended in disaster, with the loss
of all 129 crewmen.
Recent excavations on nearby
islands suggest scurvy, hypothermia
- and potentially cannibalism – killed
the crew after they abandoned the two
stranded vessels. Multiple expeditions
to recover the ships and the remains
of the men proved futile.
For generations, Inuit oral history
has told of the two wrecked ships and
stranded sailors. Long ignored by
western archaeologists, the history
was vindicated when Inuit historians
helped uncover the fi nal resting sites
of Erebus in 2014 , and Terror in 2016.
Since the monumental discovery ,
Parks Canada has set about studying
both ships in detail, to better under-
stand the lives of those aboard – and
the fi nal months of the voyage.
From within the wreck, Captain
Francis Crozier’s cabin remains the
most intact. Only his sleeping quar-
ters, which are behind a shut door, are
inaccessible.
The location itself, beneath the
frigid Arctic waters, has been critical to
preserving much of the ship. The water
temperature, and the lack of natural
light, has prevented the degradation of
many of the items, including crockery
and navigation items. Most exciting
for the researchers is the prospect that
thick sediment, low in oxygen, has
preserved documentation within the
ship, including logbooks and maps.
“Not only are the furniture and cab-
inets in place, drawers are closed and
many are buried in silt, encapsulat-
ing objects and documents in the best
possible conditions for their survival,”
said Marc-André Bernier , the head of
Parks Canada’s underwater archae-
ology department. “Each drawer and
other enclosed space will be a treasure
trove of unprecedented information
on the fate of the Franklin expedition.”
Retrieved items will be shared
between the governments of Canada
and Inuit, the result of a recent agree-
ment. Before publicly announcing the
most recent discovered, community
members of Gjoa Haven, including
young students, were the fi rst to view
images of the wreck.
Parks Canada has set up devices to
monitor the fl ow of the water close to
Terror, and is now studying Erebus.
The team hope their survey of the
site will continue until early next
month before the annual formation
of autumn sea ice.Secrets of ill-fated
voyage to Northwest
Passage preserved
in Arctic Ocean silt
‘Each drawer
will be a
treasure
trove on the
fate of the
Franklin
expedition’Marc-André
Bernier
Parks Canadasaid in a tweet that the Yemeni gov-
ernment held the UAE responsible for
the “explicit extra-judicial targeting”,
adding that the strikes had also killed
several civilians. Offi cials in the UAE
declined to comment.
The government and the STC are
ostensibly allies in the Saudi-led coali-
tion fi ghting against Houthi rebels who
seized much of north Yemen and the
capital, Sana’a, in 2014. The STC’s ulti-
mate goal, however, is independence
for the south , which says the govern-
ment has ties to Islamists.
The rift has also exposed tensions
between the coalition members Saudi
Arabia, which backs the government of
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi ,
and the UAE, which funds and arms
the STC and allied militias such as the
Security Belt.
The UAE has fallen out with Hadi’s
side as it includes a party the UAE sees
as close to the Muslim Brotherhood,
which the Gulf state seeks to neutral-
ise across the Middle East.▲ Fighters of the Security Belt militia,
who are backed by the UAE, in AdenThe attack is a major escalation in a
three-week struggle for Aden between
the Yemeni government and the sep-
aratist Southern Transitional Council
(STC) , which is backed by the UAE.
Yemen’s deputy foreign minister,
Mohammed Abdullah al- Hadrami ,Ben Doherty and agenciesUp to six protesters and one soldier
have been killed in clashes across
Indonesia’s West Papua and Papua
provinces, although protesters and
police dispute how many have died.
A source at one protest in Deiyai
Regency said police had fi red lived
rounds into a crowd of demonstrators.
Six people were killed and two seri-
ously injured, said the source, who
requested anonymity, fearing repris-
als. “Shots were fi red at the protesters,
but people continued to sit in protest .”
A national police spokesman saidthe protest by about 150 people at the
Deiyai district chief ’s offi ce had turned
violent when more than a thousand
others tried to storm the building using
arrows and machetes.
A Papua military spokesman said
security forces had restored order.
They had found two injured protest-
ers , one with an arrow in his stomach
and the other shot in the leg. Both had
died at a nearby hospital. A soldier had
died at the scene and fi ve police and
military personnel had been injured.
A number of violent protests have
hit Papua since last week , triggered
by videos circulated on the internet of
security forces in Surabaya, East Java,
calling Papuan students “monkeys”
and “dogs”.
Papua was incorporated into Indo-
nesia in 1969 after a UN-sponsored
ballot that was seen as a sham by many.
Since then, a low-level insurgency
has simmered in the mineral-rich
region, which is divided into two prov-
inces, Papua and West Papua.Protesters dead
after clash with
police in Papua
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