Sunday 26 November 2023 · moved the Index · spike

Cargo ship sinks off Greece

Type sinkingWhere Greek islandWindow 2023-11-26 → 2023-12-04 (9 days)

A cargo ship sank off a Greek island on November 26, 2023, in stormy seas with 13 crew members missing. The incident was a weather-related maritime casualty unrelated to geopolitical tensions.

Peak 117.9 on Sunday 26 November 2023. The shaded band is the incident window.

Where the attention came from

Search
0%
Research
12%
News
51%
Social (X only)
36%

Over the whole window this ran Media-led; on the peak day itself it read Mixed-led. When the two differ, the fast signals (social, news) spiked and faded while the slow ones (search, research) carried the tail. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.

Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.

How unusual it was

117.9
Index at peak (50 = calmest year)
#13
of the 14 incidents that moved the Index since 2020
3 days
for the extra attention to halve
>38 days (still elevated at window end)
back to the pre-incident level

The #13 incident since 2020 by peak. Its peak day ranks #200 among all days — the higher days all belong to 13 bigger incidents.

How far it spread

Tankers
×2.1
Car carriers (ro-ro)
×1.8
Shipping in general
Bulk carriers
Gas carriers
Container & cargo ships

Stayed in one vessel type — 1 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.

Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.

How it was framed the frame glossary →

People
64%
Price
22%
Politics
9%
Progress
5%
Planet
1%

Lead frame: human drama. Trade press was 4% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)

Acting, or acted upon

entirely acted uponmostly acted uponneutralmostly actorprimary actor

In 72% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 66% of it was strongly negative in tone.

What the coverage said

  • Greece: 13 crew missing after cargo ship sinks near Lesbos – DW – 11/26/2023dw.com · 2023-11-26
  • Rescue operation under way after cargo ship sinks off Greece coastaljazeera.com · 2023-11-26
  • Thirteen missing after cargo ship sinks off Greececanberratimes.com.au · 2023-11-26
  • EU border agency helping search for missing crew after cargo ship sinks off Greecebiztoc.com · 2023-11-27
  • Cargo ships including Indian crew capsizes off Greece Coast, rescue operation underwayaninews.in · 2023-11-27

Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.

Data for this incident (JSON)

Maritime Attention Index, incident: Cargo ship sinks off Greece, peak 117.9 on 26 November 2023. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2023-cargo-ship-sinks-off-greece/

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