They make unpublished images of a historic ship that sank 170 years ago

The cold waters of the Arctic have preserved the interior of the ship / afp

More than 170 years after the mysterious disappearance of the British ship HMS Terror in the Canadian Arctic, unpublished images of these remains have been released, revealing a preserved interior that could shed new light on this mythical expedition.

Terror is one of two ships in the expedition of the English explorer John Franklin, who left Britain in 1845 in search of the Northwest Pbadage, which connects the Atlantic Oceans and Pacific across the Arctic.

Surprised by the extreme temperatures, the 129 sailors of the expedition were trapped a year and a half in the ice before dying of starvation and cold.

The circumstances of the greatest tragedy of Arctic exploration, the precise date of which is unknown, have remained unclear since. The first ship, HMS Erebus, was found in 2014 in the same area.

The images taken by the divers and an unmanned submersible robot reveal, intact, artifacts of life on the ship, whose remains were discovered in 2016 at a depth of 24 meters off the coast of King's Island William, in the Northwest Pbadage. , east of Cambridge Bay, Canada.

"When exploring the HMS Terror, we had the impression that it was a ship recently abandoned by his crew, he seems to have escaped with time, "said Ryan Harris, director of the archaeological project and pilot of the remote-controlled vehicle used for research.

In 48 dives, seven of which with the robot, "in water close to zero degrees or less", the team obtained images of more than 90% of the ship's lower deck.

A rudder covered with seaweed, a sailor's reach buried under the silt and anemones, plates and bottles intact: everything is there, as if the ship had been abandoned suddenly 170 years ago.

The sediments that covered Captain Francis Crozier's cabin helped preserve his office, where researchers hope to find scientific instruments and maps.

The remains of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were found by Canadian researchers in 2014 and 2016, respectively, after years of research and mystery. And despite the fact that more than 30 expeditions have attempted to locate Franklin's ships and its 129 sailors, until 2014, only graves and signs of cannibalism were discovered.