Titanic history brought to life with replica to open as Chinese tourist destination

Reproduction of ill-fated passenger liner, complete with working steam engine, will star at a theme park in Sichuan province

Replica took over US$150 million and six years to build – longer than the construction of the original Titanic

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Aerial photo taken on April 27, 2021 shows a still-under-construction replica of the Titanic ship in Daying County in China's southwest Sichuan province. It will be the centrepiece of a theme park in southwest China, where tourists can splash out for a night on the true-to-size vessel. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:20pm, 14 May 2021Updated: 10:42pm, 14 May 2021

More than a century after its ill-fated maiden voyage, the Titanic is being brought back from the deep at a landlocked Chinese theme park where tourists can soon splash out for a night on a full-scale replica.

The project’s main backer was inspired to recreate the world’s most infamous cruise liner by the 1997 box office hit of the same name – once the world’s top-grossing film and wildly popular in China.

The original luxury vessel, the largest of its time and branded “unsinkable” by its owners, has become a byword for hubris ever since it plunged into the depths of the Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg, leaving more than 1,500 people dead.

Investor Su Shaojun is pictured with a model of the ship during an interview at his office in Daying County. Photo: AFP

Investor Su Shaojun says he was motivated to finance the audacious, 260-metre-long (850-foot-long) duplicate to keep memories of the Titanic alive.

“I hope this ship will be here in 100 or 200 years,” Su said. “We are building a museum for the Titanic.”

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