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A 94-year-old British woman who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 criticised Sunday black market dealers who have been selling off relics from the wreckage.
Millvina Dean, the last British survivor of the disaster which killed more than 1,500 people, spoke out after a BBC television programme discovered a porthole from the boat for sale for 20,000 pounds (30,000 euros, 38,000 dollars).
The show also found that Titanic crockery, also recovered from the Atlantic floor, two and a half miles (four kilometres) down, was available for 60 pounds a piece on the black market.
"My father is still on there. It's awfully wrong to take things, especially from a ship where so many people perished. I don't suppose these people thought of that -- they just thought of the money," Dean told the Inside Out programme, which is being screened Monday.
A United States court has forbidden the sale of relics and gave salvage rights to a firm in Atlanta, Georgia, on condition that any items recovered were put on public display.
But Titanic expert Bill Willard told the BBC that the wreck was being damaged by expeditions in mini-submarines, some of which carry tourists.
The porthole's existence came to light when it was taken to the original manufacturers in St Helen's, north-west England, for verification.
Utley's Engineering still has detailed records of the portholes it made for the liner in 1908 and managing director Tom Utley told the programme he had "no doubt" the one he saw came from the boat.
The Titanic, then the biggest luxury liner ever made, was considered unsinkable when it went down on its maiden voyage from Southampton, southern England, to New York, after hitting an iceberg.
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AFPEntertainment-Britain-history-television-accident-sea
AFP 291646 GMT 10 06
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