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The abandoned Lyubov Orlova may be bringing hundreds of disease-ridden cannibal rats to the UK after cutting adrift in the North Atlantic a year ago
A ghost ship infested with hundreds of cannibalistic rats may end up beaching on Britain's coastline, experts have warned.

The abandoned Lyubov Orlova has been missing since it cut adrift while being towed from Canada nearly a year ago.

Coastguards fear the 40-year-old liner was driven across the North Atlantic by high winds and is now lurking worryingly close to the UK shoreline.

Searchers say there are likely to be hundreds, if not thousands, of disease-ridden rats on board with no source of food except each other.

Based on signals from distress beacons thought to have been set off accidentally and an unconfirmed satellite image, it is believed the Soviet vessel could hit the West coast of Ireland, Scotland or the far southern tip of England.

Belgian-based searcher Pim de Rhoodes said: 'She is floating around there somewhere. There will be a lot of rats and they eat each other.'

A spokesman for the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: 'We have received no reported sightings of the vessel since April, but we will respond accordingly.'

The 4,250-ton Lyubov Orlova - which was built to carry 110 passengers - was impounded in Newfoundland in 2010 after being deserted by her crew over a debt row.
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Two years later, she was towed to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped.

But when she came loose, the Canadian government decided to drag her far out to sea and leave her there.

Adventurers - who want to cash in on the ship's £600,000 value as scrap - do not believe she has sunk because the life-raft transmitters would have gone off.

The sign of her since has been two distress beacons picked up mid-Atlantic in March last year which are thought to have gone off when life-rafts fell into the water.

A few weeks later, a satellite spotted a blip off the coast of Scotland big enough to be the ship, but no vessel was found. After that, nothing has been seen of the 300ft liner.

Irish coastguard Chris Reynolds said: 'We must stay vigilant.

'We don't want rats from foreign ships coming onto Irish soil. If it came and broke up on shore, I'm sure local people wouldn't be very happy about it.'

The Lyubov is now gaining in notoriety in internet discussion forums, an iPhone app called Find Orlova and its own Twitter account.