200 tonnes of silver recovered from sunken ship

London, Sept 27: Around 200 tonnes of silver was seized from a British ship, which was travelling from India. The ship was sunk by a German U-boat in the Atlantic in 1941.

The American exploration company Odyssey Marine which found the silver has a contract with the transport department, according to which, it will keep 80% of the cargo's value. During this summer, the sunken ship was found nearly about 4,700 m below the North Atlantic and 300 miles off the Irish coast. Last week, the sunken ship was confirmed as SS Gairsoppa.

In the stormy weather, it was going back to Britain and was running on low fuel. The ship tried to divert to Galway harbour but was spotted and submerged by German submarine. Out of the 85-strong crew, only one person survived from the torpedo attack as the ageing steamer tried to reach Ireland.

It will be recovered in the second quarter of 2012, confirmed Odyssey Marine's senior project manager Andrew Craig.

OneIndia News