The La Seye sank so quickly that many aboard never had a chance to escape.
In the darkness and heavy mist before dawn, the mail steamer collided with another vessel and was nearly cut in half. Within two minutes, it was gone, carrying scores of passengers and crew beneath the water.
Those who survived the sinking faced another danger almost immediately.
As rescuers from the Onda lowered boats and searched through the wreckage, sharks were already attacking people clinging to debris in the sea.
Sixty-one survivors were eventually pulled from the water, many of them bearing shark bites and other serious injuries.
Sharks Attack Wreck’s Victims
SINGAPORE. — The mail steamer La Seye, of the Messagries Maritime Service, running between Java and Singapore, and on her way to this port, crashed into the Onda, of the British-India Line, and sank within two minutes.
Seven European passengers, including Baron and Baroness Beniczky, the Captain of La Seye, five European officials, and 88 others, comprising native passengers and members of the crew, were drowned.
The rescue of 61 persons, practically from the jaws of sharks, formed a thrilling incident of the wreck.
The accident occurred about 4 o’clock in the morning in a thick mist. The vessels were steaming at good speed and the La Seye was cut almost in half. There was no time for panic nor any attempt on the part of the officers of the foundering steamer to put out the boats. The majority of those on board were caught in their berths and carried down with the vessel.
The force of the collision brought the Onda to almost a dead stop and her engines were at once slowed and boats lowered. The rescue work proved thrilling, for not only were the rescuing parties impeded by the darkness, but shoals of sharks were already attacking those clinging to pieces of wreckage in the water.
61 persons from the ill-fated steamer were finally dragged into the boats and brought by the Onda to this port. Many of them had been bitten by sharks and several were severely injured.
Source: Carrizozo News. Carrizozo, N.M. January 14, 1910.
