Polish authorities recently banned divers潛水員 from coming within 500 metres of the Wilhelm Gustloff. The German ship was sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea in 1945. More than 9,000 lives are thought to have been lost - the single largest death toll死亡人數 at sea.
Last month, seven European naval associations condemned譴責 Dutch salvage打撈 firms which they said were desecrating侮辱 sailors'水手的 graves墳墓. They'd been searching for scrap metal廢舊金屬 aboard three British warships torpedoed魚雷擊中 and sunk off the Netherlands in 1914.
UNESCO's Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage遺產, which was adopted ten years ago, does not apply in these cases, because it only protects shipwrecks沈船 more than 100 years old.
Whether ships and their dead should be left to rest in peace, or are sites of legitimate合法 archaeological考古的 interest, can be a vexed煩惱 and often emotional question.
Archaeologists say their job is the recovery and meticulous細緻, 細密的 preservation保存 of priceless價值連城 artefacts文物. Many of them reject the label "treasure hunters".
But, with deep-sea exploration equipment設備 costing tens of thousands of dollars a day, they need to cover their costs somehow不知何故. It's no surprise, then, that a ship laden with gold, silver and other valuables is seen as the greatest prize獎.
Sam Wilson, BBC News
This text is from bbc learning english
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2011/11/111104_witn_wrecks.shtml
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