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Orissa fishermen discover sunken French ship

M I Khan in Bhubaneswar

Fishermen in Orissa have discovered a sunken French ship on the mouth of the river Mahanadi near the confluence with the Bay of Bengal at Hukitola.

"Something hit our boat one night and next morning we found it was a big sunken ship" said Ram Prakash Mandal, a fisherman.

The ship's upper portion is visible during a low tide.

The age of the ship is still unknown but local historians feel that the ship could be more than 100 years old.

"Hukitola was an ancient port. Traders of Bengal and Orissa used to do business with Burma and far East from this port," said Bijoy Mohanty, a historian.

Mohanty said the ship is made of steel and it is 50 feet long and 20 feet wide.

"As far as I know the description about a sunken French ship by John Beams in his autobiography tallies with this ship," Mohanty said.

Beams was a Bengal civil service officer who served one year as collector and district magistrate in Balasore in 1869 and again for four years from 1871.

Beams in his autobiography Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian which was written in 1875, vividly describes the fateful French ship Verona.

According to John Beams, Verona sank in a severe cyclone in 1870 near Hukitola and all crew members including its captain, Harris, and his family members died in the mishap. The tomb of captain Harris still exists near the lighthouse.

The fishermen want the government to remove the ship because it has become an impediment to the movement of fishing boats particularly at night.

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