page_title: MV Monte Cervantes
section_title: Evacuation and assistance
hierarchical_section_title: MV Monte Cervantes / Sinking / Evacuation and assistance
caption_attribution_description: A corridor of the end of the world prison at Ushuaia, now a museum
context_page_description: MV Monte Cervantes was a 500 ft German passenger liner that cruised the South American route from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn to Punta Arenas to Ushuaia and return to Buenos Aires. The ship sailed under German registration and belonged to the South American Hamburg Company. After only two years of service she sank at the beginning of 1930 near Tierra del Fuego. The ship became known as "The Titanic of the South."
  On 22 January 1930, Monte Cervantes departed Ushuaia and within 30 minutes struck some submerged rocks in the Pan de Indio. The ship could not be dislodged and began to sink. The lifeboats were lowered and 1,200 passengers and 350 crew were removed from the ship. Monte Cervantes sank 24 hours later, and while all the passengers and crew were able to leave the ship before she sank, her captain was killed. The remainder of the crew and all of the passengers were saved.
context_section_description: Immediately after Monte Cervantes slipped from the rock, the command was given to lower away the lifeboats from E-Deck. This initially resulted in a small panic among the passengers, but the crew explained that the 30 boats remaining would still be enough to receive an additional 500 passengers, and the anxiety was relieved. All 1,117 passengers and 255 of the crew members were successfully evacuated and began rowing against the wind toward Ushuaia. A passenger later reported that the rescue was not always pleasant: "...a high wind rose and enormous waves lifted us to a height of ten metres [33 feet], letting us fall again in great precipices, nearly turning over the boats. It was terrifying! The waves drenched us with glacial water, from head to toe. My legs were stiff and my right arm was paralyzed after clinging for so long to the edge of the boat." 
  At the time of the collision the wireless operator had immediately sent out an SOS. The signal was received by numerous stations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The Argentine freighter Vincente Fidel Lopez in the port of Ushuaia also heard the call and headed out to assist Monte Cervantes, but on the way suffered an accident itself with its launch. The remaining crew on Monte Cervantes meanwhile collected all objects of value to the passengers that they could find and handed them to the arriving launch, also requesting that the launch pick up the passengers from the lifeboats. Shortly after the departure of the first motor launch, a second launch, from the prison of Ushuaia, appeared and offered its assistance. It was sent back and soon returned with several piles of warming blankets. Shortly thereafter the Vincente Fidel Lopez reached the shipwreck site. It took passengers on board from the life boats and carried approximately 800 persons safely to the mainland. Meanwhile, some of the other lifeboats had wandered off course and drifted to remote coastal regions. Their passengers had to make a long walk through a thickly wooded area before they also reached the town of Ushuaia, which at the time had a population of about 800. Thus the 1,200 passengers produced a strain on the community, which housed some of the passengers in the town's prison.
caption: Some passengers had to be housed in this prison, today a museum in Ushuaia
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