100 years later, Titanic tragedy marked by events worldwide

Exactly a century after the ship went down, passengers lined the decks of MS Balmoral, which has been retracing the route of the doomed voyage. After a moment of silence, three floral wreaths were cast onto the waves as the ship's whistle sounded in the dark.

Jane Allen from Devon in southwest England, whose great-uncle perished on the Titanic, said the moment vividly reminded her of the horror of the disaster.

"All you could hear was the swell splashing against the side of the ship. You could see the white breakers stretching out to sea," she told the BBC. "You are in the middle of nowhere. And then you look down over the side of the ship and you realize that every man and every woman who didn't make it into a lifeboat had to make that decision, of when to jump or stay on the ship as the lights went out."

Another cruise ship, Journey, which has traveled from New York, also held a service at the site of the disaster, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

The Titanic, the world's largest and most luxurious ocean liner, was traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912. It sank less than three hours later, with the loss of all but 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.

A century on, events around the globe are marking a tragedy that retains its grip on the world's imagination.

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Titanic was built, a memorial monument was unveiled Sunday at a ceremony attended by local dignitaries, relatives of the dead and explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic on the ocean floor in 1985.

A brass band played as the granite plinth bearing bronze plaques was uncovered beside Belfast City Hall. Officials say it is the first Titanic memorial to list all victims alphabetically, with no distinction between passengers and crew members, or between first-, second- and third-class travelers.

"We remember all those who perished and whose names are herein inscribed - men, women and children who loved and we loved, their loss still poignantly felt by their descendants," the Rev. Ian Gilpin told the crowd.

After a minute's silence, a choir sang "Nearer My God to Thee" - the hymn Titanic's band is reported to have played as the ship went down.

Belfast spent decades scarred by its link to the disaster, but has come to take pride in the feats of engineering and industry involved in building the ship. Last month, a gleaming new visitor attraction, Titanic Belfast, opened on the site of the shipyard where the doomed vessel was built.

"The focus of the world is on Belfast and we are doing her proud," said Una Reilly, chair of the Belfast Titanic Society. "We are all proud of this ship. What happened was a disaster; she was not."