A drowned piece of history

A 300 feet long vessel, believed to be belonging to the World War II era, has been discovered in the Bay of Bengal near Chandrabhaga in Orissa.  The discovery was made by famous scuba diver Sabir Bux.

Bux came to know about the presence of the vessel from the local fishermen
some time back. It so happened that Bux was exploring the sea near Chandrabhaga when some of the local fishermen, called nolias, informed him that they had seen bubbles coming up from sea bed at a particular spot.

On further enquiry he was informed that it was a place around 12 kilometers off  Chandrabhaga coast where the nolias had seen water bubbles coming up from the sea base. And at that particular place, their fishing nets were getting stuck in something which the fishermen thought was made of solid metal, though initially they had thought that it was a hill that was giving them trouble while they were out to catch fish.

This information was sufficient to ignite Bux's curiosity. On March 13, he decided to find out what it was that had been giving trouble to the fishermen. He swam 10 kilometres from the coast to plunge into the deep sea. And after some 45 minutes in the sea he discovered this vessel. Bux says, “This is a foreign-made vessel. However, nothing much can be said about it as of now. It will take about two months for complete observation and analysis of the ship. If we get government's help in this job then it will be very easy to find out more about the vessel. Nevertheless, it's an interesting discovery and we will come to know more about it soon.”

According to Bux, the 300-feet-long and the four-storey vessel is largely intact. Only the upper roof is missing which seems to be blasted and stolen. Interestingly, its cable and wire are lying safe. The question that who stole the roof and when is again an interesting one, though it does not seem to be stolen in recent times because in that case the locals would have known about the presence of the ship in their waters.

If it turns out to be a warship then it will make for an interesting item for a museum that will attract national and international visitors.

There is excitement all around in the town about the discovery. Local Zila Parishad chairman Shankar Parida observes, “The pictures and videos of the vessel taken by Bux clearly show that it belongs to an old era and we wish to know what such a huge ship was doing in the Bay of Bengal and how it drowned. We would urge the administration to look into the matter.”

But it seems that the government is not seriously interested in the matter. Social activist N. A. Shah Ansari says, “No government officer has visited the spot as yet. Let's see what happens.”