An abandoned ferry was blown ashore in Greece, washing up on the same beach that suffered an oil spill from a nearby tanker wreck three months earlier.

The 6,300-gt Makedonia (built 1989), which had been laid-up for years at the Piraeus anchorage, broke loose on 16 December in moderate gales.

The ship is believed to have drifted for about a mile before startled residents on the island of Salamina saw it grounding just below their houses on the rocky Kynosoura beach the following morning.