タイタニック号展開幕、見学ツアーで死亡の探検家も協力　仏パリ

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】フランス・パリで１８日、大西洋に沈む豪華客船タイタニック号をテーマにした展覧会が開幕した。展示品の多くは、同船の残骸見学ツアーの事故で先月亡くなった同国の深海探検家、ポールアンリ・ナルジョレ氏（７７）が過去の潜水調査で持ち帰ったタイタニック号ゆかりの品々だ。（写真はタイタニック号をテーマにした展覧会で展示されている同船の模型。仏パリで）
　プロデューサーのパスカル・ベルナルダン氏は同展について「ナルジョレ氏の活動、独創性、情熱によるところが大きい」と話した。「ミスター・タイタニック」と呼ばれていた同氏はオープニングにも出席予定だったという。
　ナルジョレ氏は、１９８７～２０１０年に行われたタイタニック号の８回の潜水調査のうち６回について、統率または参加し、５０００点を超える品を海底から持ち帰った。航海計器や乗客の腕時計・宝飾品など展示品計２６０点の多くは、同氏の協力によるものだ。
　会場に足を踏み入れると、来場者は全長４メートルを超えるタイタニック号の模型に出迎えられる。船室や大階段、機関室なども再現されており、１９１２年４月に英国から米ニューヨークに向けて出発した、当時としては世界最大の客船が氷山に衝突し、沈没するまでの旅を味わえる。
　会期は９月１０日まで。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/07/20-17:25）

A major exhibition dedicated to the Titanic opened in Paris on Tuesday, with many of the objects on display brought up from the ship's wreck by a French deep-sea explorer who died in a submersible disaster last month.
Henri-Paul Nargeolet, who was nicknamed Mr Titanic, was one of five people onboard the Titan tourist sub when it lost contact with the surface after plunging down to visit the wreck in mid-June.
An attempted rescue operation in the North Atlantic briefly captivated the world before it found evidence that the vessel had imploded underwater, killing all on board.
The Titanic exhibition which opened in the French capital was largely the result of the work, ingenuity and passion of Henri-Paul Nargeolet, the event's producer Pascal Bernardin said.
Nargeolet, 77, had been expected to attend the exhibition's opening.
The explorer helped bring up many of the 260 objects on display -- which include navigation instruments and hooks from the ship as well as watches and jewellery from its passengers -- from the wreck.
The exhibition, which runs from July 18 to September 10, starts off with a more than four-metre-long model of the mythic ship.
Visitors are then taken on a journey from the night the Titanic departed England for New York in April 1912, through the sinking of what was the world's largest cruise ship after its hull was ruptured by an iceberg.
The exhibition features recreations of the ship's cabins, grand staircase and even the oppressive atmosphere of its engine room.
A joint French?American expedition discovered the Titanic's wreck nearly four kilometres (2.5 miles) underwater off the coast of Newfoundland in 1985.
Nargeolet directed or participated in six of the eight exploration missions to the wreck between 1987 and 2010, which brought back more than 5,000 objects to the surface.
The vessels used for those missions were quite different to the Titan. Previously voiced concerns about the sub's safety came to light after its implosion.
Titan's US-based operator OceanGate, whose CEO Stockton Rush was among those killed onboard Titan, has suspended all its activities indefinitely.
It had charged $250,000 a seat on the submersible, which was about the size of an SUV car.
The US Coast Guard and Canadian authorities have launched probes into the cause of the tragedy.