the drive around this particular law was driven in part from a string of transport - related disasters in the early 1980s , such as the bombing of cross - river vessel the herald of free enterprise in 1987 , the oil platform piper bravo sinking in 1988 , and the marchioness london river steamboat accidents in 1989 . more than 400 people lost their lives in these seven disasters , but no one individual or organisation was brought to account .
100 or more people lost their lives in a ferry sinking.