Mumbai does a 'Bermuda Triangle'

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MH16Df01.html

MUMBAI - No vanishing aircraft or flying saucers yet, but 42 ships have sunk or run aground off the Mumbai coast in the past six monsoon seasons. Washed ashore with the dead ships have been oil spills, conspiracy theories and security fears.

The shipwrecks have spilt hundreds of tonnes of oil, coal, dangerously floating cargo containers, toxic metals and created logistic dilemmas.

Experts attribute Mumbai's growing reputation as graveyard for ships to raging sea currents and tides during the southwest monsoon months of June to September. The currents and fierce winds can drag a ship with technical snags onto the rocky coast.

But that's not all. Ships collide off Mumbai, or are mysteriously


abandoned, and merchant vessels that were reportedly sunk or abandoned in distant waters resurface like ghost ships on Mumbai shores.

One such curious case is the 1,000-tonne MV Pavit, a merchant vessel carrying a Panama flag. It was abandoned near Oman on June 29 by its Indian crew after engine failure and sea-water flooding the engine room. A British navy communique said the Royal Navy frigate HMS St Albans had rescued the 13 Indian sailors in a "desperate situation", after the 20-year-old ship drifted without engines for three days in the high seas. The Dubai-based owner Pavit Shipping Lines declared the ship to have sunk around June 30.