Two containers filled with household goods that the sunken cargo ship MV ITT Puma was carrying were washed ashore in Odisha’s Kendrapara district on Monday.

The containers — which were full of food items, mats, mustard oil, saris, clothes and books, among other articles — are believed to have floated to Kendrapara from Sagar Island in Bengal, a distance of nearly 400km.

They were found on the Satabhaya beach, an uninhabited stretch of sand under Rajnagar Nagar police station in Kendrapara district.

The labels on the containers revealed that they belonged to ITT Lines Private Limited, a Calcutta-based logistics firm that owned MV ITT Puma.

Residents take a look at the container. The Telegraph

The containers were loaded on the Mumbai-registered cargo ship that was sailing from Calcutta to Port Blair when it sank around 90 nautical miles (167km) south of Sagar island on August 26.

The Indian Coast Guard rescued 11 crew members of the ship and took them to Paradip.

“The ship sank after sailing 167km from Sagar Island. The distance between the spot where the ship sank in the Bay of Bengal and the Satabhaya beach in Kendrapara is around 413km. The containers floated for seven days before reaching the Satabhaya coast,” said a marine official from the Paradip Port.

Weather department officials said the prevailing monsoon winds and high tide helped the two containers move around 400km and reach the Kendrapara coast.

An official of ITT Lines Private Limited confirmed that the containers belonged to them.

A travel agency in the Andamans told Metro that of the materials found in the containers, the books and the booklets were being sent to them.

Chittaranjan Biswas, of the travel agency, said: “For the promotion of tourism in Andaman, we had printed around 20,000 booklets on the Andamans. They were printed in Calcutta. Those booklets were among the items that were lost.”

The other items belonged to different business firms.

Sources said residents of the areas close to the beach where the containers washed up took away all the goods.

Residents, however, denied the allegation. “Most of the items had been lost tothe sea by the time the containers reached the coast. People found the items floating on the sea. Only a few were left.People might have taken them,” said Satabhayasarpanch Prashanta Kumar Parida.

“We are inquiring into the matter,” an officer of the Kendrapara police said.