A mysterious wooden box washes ashore at coastline

Visakhapatnam: A mysterious wooden box weighing over 100 tonnes, which washed ashore at RK beach, left Vizagites guessing about its content.

The initial panic among the residents kept vanishing as the city authorities started exploring the box.

Nevertheless, the buzz in the port city was around the huge five-layered box. What does the box contain? Are there any explosives in it? Or treasure? These doubts cropped up among the onlookers as well as police officials. A bomb squad was pressed into service for a preliminary examination and for a while, which kept the residents on tenterhooks

The officials, who did not get any clues, finally decided to bring two proclainers to break open the box. When the JCBs ripped apart the layers of the box one after the other, the police and the bomb squad team finally heaved a sigh of relief as they found a few wooden logs inside the box. Although the box reached the shores of the beach in the wee hours of Saturday, it took a while to break open the box under the supervision of the city police and a bomb squad.

A sense of curiosity prevailed among the viewers as they waited with bated breath to see the contents of the huge box which is expected to be over two decades old.

Mobile phones were fished out of the pockets and bags to capture the rare scene that unfolded before them.

According to archaeological experts, the box might date back to the British era.

It may be recalled that Visakhapatnam beach witnessed similar incidents in the past as well. Earlier, a chariot-like object washed ashore.

For centuries, Visakhapatnam has been a commercial centre for trade. In 2020, a bunker belonging to the World War 2 era surfaced on the

coastline.