Charley Noble, Yes, I realize that.

My question is (and, we don't know the details), could a grounding potentially make a evacuation situation worse with a large passenger vessel(more rapid and greater capsizing, thus less access to the life boats, rather than better the situation?

If the water tight compoartments were not sealed, I suspect the captain did not know this, or he would have odered corrective action. One would suspect some significant effort to analyse the situation and consult with shore experts (if needed), if there was time, before a decision to come near shore (thus a risk to ground) was made. In airplane situations, we mostly see good communications with ground experts.

It seems odd that some type of automatic sealing of the compartments would not have been triggered in a relatively modern vessel?