The ship discovered in the Bay of Bengal. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, March 14: Scuba diver Sabir Bux (42) has found a sunken ship off the Bay of Bengal near the Chandrabhaga coast in Konark. According to Bux, the ship must be more than 150 years old.

“On hearing from the fishermen that the fishing nets had regularly been torn in the sea about 550 metres away from the coast, I decided to take a dive. I took the plunge on Sunday and discovered the huge ship,” the diver said.

“It was neither a cargo ship nor a cruise liner. There was neither any container nor any chamber for passengers. It must be a warship. I entered the first floor of the ship, but could not dare go further. There are many pillars in it. More research is needed. The woods and iron rods, used in the ship, suggest that it is more than a century old,” said Bux.

The ship was discovered 7.5 nautical miles away from Chandrabhaga on the Konark coast 60 metres inside the sea. The ship is 300 metres long. Bux also took a video of the ship for nearly 27 minutes. “I spent nearly 45 minutes under the sea,” he said.

Former director of the state archaeology Debaraj Pradhan said: “More research is needed to ascertain the ship’s identity. After the British had come to India in 1600’s, activities of the British and the French went up along the Orissa coast starting from Balasore in north to Gopalpur in south. Only examination of the wood, used in the ship, can ascertain its age. If a proper survey is conducted on the coast, location of more sunken ships can be identified.”

Pradhan further said that survey should be taken up on the Rushikulya bank in Ganjam. Earlier in 2009, Bux discovered a 133-year-old, 250ft long and 50ft wide French cargo ship named Veleda, which had sunk near Hukitola island in the Bay of Bengal off the Orissa coast in Kendrapara district. The captain failed to anchor the ship to the coast as a severe cyclone had struck it.

Though it was older than the Titanic, no one had bothered to trace its remnants. Many crew members, who had succumbed to the shipwreck, were buried in a cemetery near a lighthouse on the coast. Coming to know about it from the then Cuttack collector John Beames’s autobiography Memories of a Bengal Civilians, Bux decided to explore the rich history associated with the ship. Beames was the collector of Cuttack from 1875 to 1878.