After the Storm: Rena's Breakup

As predicted by salvage experts, the weekend storm broke the containership Rena in two, leaving the bow section on the reef:

Two days on, the bottom had fallen out of one section, along with the containers, leaving this strange skeleton of hatchway openings and hull:

To recap: On October 5 Rena crashed full speed onto Astrolabe Reef 14 miles outside the harbor at Tauranga, NZ. Remarkably, it held together for months, even though half the 47,000-ton ship was free to rise and fall with the waves, putting enormous stress on the midships section between the floating part and the grounded part. A crack in the hull developed early, and widened:

The numbers at the point of breakup:

• Containers lifted off by salvors and taken to shore: 389
• Containers that fell off before the storm: about 100
• Containers still on board at the time of the breakup: about 900
• Oil pumped out by salvage crews: 1,000 tons
• Oil still on board last weekend: about 400 tons, some of which is now headed out to sea:

There's no report out yet on why the ship went full speed onto rocks that are well known to mariners.