Update | Chinese firm to replicate the Titanic for 1 billion yuan for inland theme park

A Sichuan company intends to spend one billion yuan (HK$1.27 billion) building the world's first full-scale replica of the Titanic as part of a theme park in the southwestern province's Daying county.

The company, Seven Star Energy Investment, announced in Hong Kong on Sunday that it would fund the construction while a US partner would design the ship. The replica would be permanently docked on the Qi River, and become the main attraction of a planned theme park.

"When the ship hits the iceberg, it will shake, it will tumble," Su Shaojun, chief executive of the investing firm, was quoted by Reuters as saying. "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'."

The project is not the first attempt to recreate the famed ship that stuck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912 and sank, killing more than 1,500 people.

Australian billionaire Clive Palmer announced a plan to build a serviceable Titanic II cruise ship in 2012.

Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry in Hubei will build Seven Star's replica. Construction was expected to last two years, but the report did not say whether work had begun. They will base the design on the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic.