Derbyshire Timeline: The search for answers

The Derbyshire: the length of three football pitches

A second major inquiry hopes to find out what caused the bulk carrier Derbyshire to sink 20 years ago, with the loss of 44 lives.

1976: The Derbyshire is built at Swan Hunter shipyard on Teeside as a huge bulk carrier. She is twice the size of the Titanic, the length of three football pitches.

September 1980: The Derbyshire sinks in a typhoon off Japan. All 42 British crew members die, along with two wives who were also on board. Most were from Liverpool and the north east.

1981: Trade minister Lord Trefgarne rejects a formal inquiry into the sinking because of a lack of any material evidence.

1982: The Derbyshire's sister ship, the Tyne Bridge, suffers a crack in the deck and has to be towed to safety.

1986: Another sister ship, the Kowloon Bridge, breaks in two and sinks after running aground off Ireland.

1987: An inquiry into the Derbyshire sinking is finally held.

1989: The inquiry report concludes that the vessel was "probably overwhelmed by the forces of nature".

1991: The Department of Transport refuses requests to reopen the inquiry.

1994: A union-funded expedition finds the wreck of the Derbyshire and takes more than 135,000 photographs, two-and-a-half miles down.

1996 and 1997: Independent assessors return to the site, this time funded by public money.

March 1998: Experts conclude that the Derbyshire had been "unprepared to take the rigours of typhoon seas" and had been ripped apart in minutes.

March 1998: Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announces that an inquiry in some form will be reopened.

December 1998: Mr Prescott says the inquiry will be a full-scale investigation at the High Court.

5 April 2000: Inquiry begins.