The mystery of a "ghost ship" that was found off the coast of Myanmar with no crew or cargo on board, puzzling local police, has been solved.
Local fishermen discovered an empty ship, called Sam Ratulangi PB1600, 11 kilometres off the coast of Yangon.
Photos shared by Yangon police showed the eerie and rusty condition of the boat.
Myanmar's Navy personnel boarded the ship last week to search for clues.
"It was the view that the ship could have been towed by another ship after two cables … were found at its head," the Navy said in a post on social media.
A search of the surrounding area found a tug boat named Independence carrying 13 Indonesian crew members about 80 kilometres from Yangon shores.
Myanmar's Navy said the Independence was towing the old ship and heading to a ship-breaking factory in Bangladesh, before it got caught in bad weather south of the Yangon River.
"The cables attached to the ship broke, and the ship was floating along with the tide and it was difficult to continue its journey," the post said.
According to the monitoring website Marine Traffic, the 17-year-old ship was registered to Indonesia and was last spotted in 2009 near the coast of Taiwan.
Muhammad Iqbal, director at the Indonesian Department of Citizen's Protection, said the boat was a commercial vessel.
"It has nothing to do with the Government … it was towed to Bangladesh for scraps by a tug boat with a Singaporean flag," he said.
When asked about the 13 Indonesian nationals on board the tug boat, he said: "We will find a way to help them."
