Dutch Authorities Raise Number of MSC’s Containers Lost in North Sea Storm

Dutch authorities say a freight ship lost dozens more containers than previously thought when it was caught in a heavy storm early this year.

The Dutch water authority said Wednesday that at least 345 containers fell off the MSC Zoe freighter Jan. 2. The previous estimate was 291.

The authority says the ship’s owner raised the estimate after unloading the final containers at the port of Gdansk in Poland.

Beaches on a chain of islands in the northern Netherlands were littered with cargo including televisions and toys after some of the containers broke open. The Dutch army was mobilized to help clean up beaches.

A salvage operation to lift scores of containers off the seabed started late in January and is expected to take months.

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