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Titanic victims to be exhumed
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THERE will be a partial exhumation of remains from the graves of three Titanic victims buried in Halifax, in Eastern Canada, in an attempt to determine their identities.
Three families are attempting to identify relatives who perished when the luxury liner sank in April 1912 in the icy North Atlantic.
Of the more than 1,500 people who died, about 150 were buried in Halifax, 43 of whom have never been positively identified, the team of scientists heading up the exhumations said on Wednesday.
The families, who hope to find DNA matches with the remains, want to remain anonymous.
The principal investigator on the scientific team is Dr Ryan Parr, co-director of the paleo-DNA laboratory at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont. Co-investigators are Dr Scott I Fairgrieve of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont, and Alan Ruffman of Geomarine Associates Ltd in Halifax.
The exhumations, which have been approved by Nova Scotia's medical officer, Dr Robert Strang, will be conducted on Friday at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery.
Approval was given based on research by the families and scientists.
''They came to me a year-and-a-half ago, basically saying what do they need to provide to me so I can approve this,'' said Strang.
Strang said that, as with any exhumation, relatives must provide written information explaining why they want it done, and giving their approval for the process.
``Plus, I wanted to make sure that this was being approached from a research point of view - not for financial gain or publicity gain under the guise of Titanic,'' he said.
''The research part of it comes in because the technology and the technique of doing (this) DNA analysis is fairly new, and that's why the researchers are involved.''
Titanic went down about 600 kilometres southeast of Newfoundland after striking an iceberg. The ocean liner sank in under three hours.
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