Russian ghost ship infested with CANNIBAL RATS could beach in Britain after going missing in the Atlantic


A ghost ship infested with hundreds of cannibalistic rats may end up beaching on Britain’s coastline, experts have warned.

The abandoned Lyubov Orlova may be bringing hundreds of disease-ridden cannibal rats to the UK after cutting adrift in the North Atlantic a year ago

The abandoned Lyubov Orlova has been missing since it cut adrift while being towed from Canada nearly a year ago.

Built in former Yugoslavia in 1976, the unlucky vessel was abandoned in a Canadian harbour after its owners were embroiled in a debt scandal and failed to pay the crew.

The ship was being towed from Newfoundland to the Dominican Republic in January last year when it cut adrift. Experts fear high winds have pushed it thousands of miles towards the UK

The authorities in Newfoundland tried to sell the hull for scrap – valued at £600,000 – to the Dominican Republic, but cut their losses when it came loose in a storm on the way.

Sending the ship off into international waters, Transport Canada said it was satisfied the Lyubov Orlova “no longer poses a threat to the safety of [Canadian] offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment”.

Experts say the ship, which is likely to still contain hundreds of rats that have been eating each other to survive, must still be out there somewhere because not all of its lifeboat emergency beacons have been set off.


Two signals were picked up on the 12 and 23 March last year, presumably from lifeboats which fell away and hit the water, showing the vessel had made it two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic and was heading east.

A week later, an unidentified object of about the right size was spotted on radar just off the coast of Scotland – but search planes never verified the find.

Pim de Rhoodes, a Belgian salvage hunter who is among a number looking for the Lyubov Orlova off the UK coastline, told The Sun: “She is floating around out there somewhere.

“There will be a lot of rats and they eat each other. If I get aboard I’ll have to lace everywhere with poison.”

The head of the Irish coastguard, Chris Reynolds, said the ship was more likely than not to still pose a threat.

“There have been huge storms in recent months but it takes a lot to sink a Bessel as big as that,” he said. “We must stay vigilant.”

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