Rat-Infested Ghost Ship Lyubov Orlova Barrels Toward Land

[AlphaMale]

http://www.weather.com/news/rat-infested-ghost-ship-lyubov-orlova-barrels-toward-land-20140123

 

By Eric Zerkel Published: Jan 23, 2014, 6:42 PM EST

Pictured: The Lyubov Orlova seen from Petermann Island in the Antarctic Peninsula.

 

If you thought Ghost Ship was just another Hollywood horror-flick, brace yourself. According to The Independent, an abandoned, cannibalistic rat-infested, 1,565 ton Soviet-era cruise liner could be just another winter storm away from colliding with the coast of the United Kingdom or Ireland, and Canadian authorities may be to blame.

 

Built in 1976 in the former Yugoslavia, the Lyubov Orlova used to cater to Russian elite on cruises to Earth's polar regions. But the ship's owner racked up some $250,000 in debts, leading Canadian authorities to seize the ship in 2010, Quartz reports.

The ship, worth an estimated $1.1 million, was towed out of a Canadian port in Newfoundland last January en route to a scrap yard in the Dominican Republic, The National Post reports, but rough seas cut the towline, leaving the ship barreling east across the Atlantic Ocean.

 

According to The National Post, another ship dispatched by Canadian authorities corralled the Lyubov Orlova and towed it further out to sea, away from Canadian oil assets, but once the feat was accomplished the ghost ship was cut-loose, because as Transport Canada put it, the vessel “no longer poses a threat to the safety of [Canadian] offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment."

 

With no crew on board, the ship was thought to be lost forever, until March 2013, when two lifeboats fell off the ship, sending signals to authorities that the vessel had traveled two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic Ocean and was headed east, straight for the British and Irish coasts, according to The Independent.

 

Just a week later, radar picked up an object similar in size to the Lyubov Orlova just off the Scottish coast, the Daily Mirror reports, but search efforts returned nothing.

 

Months have passed with no new signals, and no sign of the ghost ship, leading many to believe the massive ship may be still intact. Adding to the speculation, a series of powerful storms have battered the coast of Ireland and the United Kingdom over the past 10 months, bringing with them powerful winds that may have pushed the abandoned vessel closer toward a collision with the "west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, or the southern tip of England," the Telegraph reports.

 

As for the rats? The National Post reports that the Lyubov Orlova sat in port for more than two years in Newfoundland, "virtually guaranteeing" the ship acquired a rat infestation. After a nearly year adrift with no food, many British media outlets believe that the rats may have turned on each other in order to survive.

 

Whether or not the cannibal rats make landfall remains to be seen, but Irish authorities are bracing for impact.

 

“For us, the big danger is something hitting it,” Irish Coast Guard director Chris Reynolds told the National Post. “It can bump into something, or more likely, something can bump into it in the middle of the night in the Atlantic.”

[Jeff]

Interesting story.

Makes me wonder how humans are the top of the food chain.

And for all the technology out there from radar to satellites and no one can find a 1,500 ton ship, granted a lot of water, but seems like they have had general ideas of it's position.

[AlphaMale]

I like the name "Cannibal Rats" as a band name!!

 

[bangerdave]

Cannibal rats with zombie rabies.Look out the end is near.

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Cannibal rats with zombie rabies.Look out the end is near.

Courtesy of Canada! Really, you can't make this shit up.

[Gibbo]

Yeah, some sections of the UK press went nuts over this story ... James Herbert would be laughing his little socks off ...

 

It's good to see how everyone elected to leave out the quote from the Irish coastguard which basically said that the beacons were probably triggered by life-rafts coming adrift as the ship sank ... or that it's REALLY unlikely that it's still afloat, what with all those pesky Atlantic storms and what have you ...

 

One thought ... if the rats onboard HAVE been eating each other, isn't there just going to be one GIANT rat left by now?

[KarpetRydOFunk]

One thought ... if the rats onboard HAVE been eating each other, isn't there just going to be one GIANT rat left by now?

 

You mean, like a Great King Rat?

[Fat Freddy]

This would be a hell of an idea for a horror movie. Salvagers board the ship and have to battle hordes of mutant rats, and maybe a zombified crew member or two. It'd be like "Ghost Ship" on steroids!!

[Gibbo]

 

One thought ... if the rats onboard HAVE been eating each other, isn't there just going to be one GIANT rat left by now?

 

You mean, like a Great King Rat?

 

 

Silly boy!