Disused ships, like planes, are beginning to pile up around the world as travel companies look to offload costs and liabilities due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just like their airborne counterparts, cruise ships too end up in 'graveyards', where these former grand maidens of the sea are fast becoming unrecognisable plies of scrap.
Cruise ships were home to some of the earliest coronavirus clusters as the pandemic spread globally early this year.
These photos taken with a drone in Izmir, Turkey, over the weekend shows five 'luxury cruise ships' being broken down at the Aliaga ship recycling port.
Kamil Onal, chairman of a ship recycling industrialists’ association, told Reuters that some 2500 people worked at the yard and it takes around six months to dismantle a full passenger ship.
Before and After:
These images show the same ships featured in the images above in their former glory, filled with thousands of people on holiday.
Carnival Fantasy:
- Maiden voyage: March 1, 1990
- Capacity: 2675 passengers plus 920 crew
- Fantasy underwent an entire refit in January, 2019
- Sold for scrap in July, 2020
MS Sovereign:
- Maiden voyage: January 16, 1988 as Sovereign of the Seas
- Capacity: 2850 passengers
- In 2004, MS Sovereign was refurbished and was the subject of the TV mini-series Dry-Dock, A Cruise Ship Reborn
MS Monarch:
- Maiden voyage: November 11, 1991 as Monarch of the Seas
- Capacity: 2744 passengers
- Fantasy underwent an entire refit in January, 2019
- Sold for scrap in July, 2020
The scrapyard has also become a pop-up bazaar popular with local hotel managers who sift through the non-metal fittings removed from the ships in search of anything they could use in their hotel buildings.
