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A Titanic theme park which simulates the disaster in which more than 1,500 people died has been criticised by the chief executive of the Liverpool Seafarers’ Centre.

Work has started on a visitor attraction in China which features a life-size replica of the Titanic and will allow tourists to relive the moment the doomed ocean liner hit an iceberg.

Su Shaojun, one of the funders of the £100m project, said at it’s launch last year: “When the ship hits the iceberg, it will shake, it will tumble.

“We will let people experience water coming in by using sound and light effects.

“They will think ‘the water will drown me, I must escape with my life’.”

But John Wilson, chief executive of the Liverpool Seafarers’ Centre, told the ECHO today: “I definitely think it’s in bad taste.

“There’s nothing wrong with being enterprising and getting an income from a project like they have done with the Titanic museum in Belfast.

“But having an attraction where it replicates what it’s like to sink is out of order and disrespectful to those who did lose their lives and their relatives.

“A lot of lives were lost and this is not something which sits easy.”

Backers of the project – including Boys from the Blackstuff star Bernard Hill, who played Captain Edward Smith in the blockbuster film adaptation in 1997 – have denied suggestions that the idea is insensitive to the 1,517 people who lost their lives in the disaster.

Mr Hill, who flew to Hong Kong to show his support for the Chinese replica last year, said at the time: “It’s been approached in a very delicate and a very sensitive way and they’re very aware of the extent of the disaster in 1912.

“I don’t think it will belittle that disaster.”

IN PICTURES: RMS Titanic

The theme park plans were revealed in January last year and work is now underway on construction.

Mr Shaojun, chief executive of the Seven Star Energy Investment Group that is funding the project, said Asia needed its own Titanic museum.

He said: “We think it’s worth spreading the spirit of the Titanic.

“The universal love and sense of responsibility shown during the Titanic shipwreck represent the spiritual richness of human civilisation.”

While the Titanic never visited Liverpool, she was conceived, planned, registered and owned in the city.

Some 90 crew members on the tragic voyage were from Merseyside or had close links with the area.

Liverpool has two hotels linked to the Titanic, the Titanic Hotel at Stanley Dock and 30 James Street, a Titanic-themed hotel based in the building which was formerly the White Star Line shipping company’s headquarters.

There is also the more controversial Titanic Boat floating hotel in Albert Dock.