News

Timber washed overboard from a Russian-registered cargo ship hit by storms in the English Channel has begun to wash up on the Thanet coast at Ramsgate.

The Sinegorsk issued an alert on Monday after it lost up to 1,500 tonnes of sawn wood about 14 miles off Newhaven.

Dover Coastguard said it began to receive reports of timber coming ashore on the Kent coast in the early hours.

A spokesman said: "It is starting to come ashore now between Pegwell Bay and Ramsgate and up towards Margate. We have just received a report from a fisherman a mile east of Broadstairs to say there's a massive amount of it there. He said he'd never seen so much wood in his life.

"Our concern is that people may try to take the wood. If they wade in to recover it they are putting themselves in real danger as the sea is so rough. The legality of what they are doing also needs to be questioned. They must realise it is someone else's property."

Kent Police warned people against trying to remove any of the timber.