Sections of a giant pipe, one almost half a kilometre long, have washed up on the north Norfolk coast after breaking free from Norwegian tugs bound for Algeria following an accident involving an Icelandic container ship.
A 480 metre (1,570ft) length of the plastic piping beached between Sea Palling and Winterton-on-Sea on Friday. Earlier this week a 200 metre section appeared at low tide further west at Horsey.
Pipelife, the Norwegian firm which made the pipes, urged people to keep away, warning they risked being crushed.
The pipes were being towed to a power plant in Algeria from Surnadal in northern Norway. On the night of 18-19 July an Icelandic container ship smashed into the pipes north of Norway in an accident that is the subject of an insurance claim.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said 12 sections of pipe had come loose from the tug. They had since been reattached to other boats or safely anchored off the coast as part of a salvage operation.
The insurers of the container ship have appointed a salvage master who is coordinating an operation based in Lowestoft, Suffolk, to recover the pipes and tow them back to Norway.
The agency said the pipes were not an environmental risk.
“Other than their physical presence they pose no other danger of, or potential for, pollution,” a spokesman said.
But Trygve Blomster, the export manager at Pipelife, said guards had been deployed to keep the public away from the pipes. He told the Guardian: “It is essential now that the salvage team fence off the pipes. If a 2.5-metre diameter pipe, several hundred-metre long pipe is moving in the water it is extremely dangerous. If you fall beside that while it moved you will be smashed. If you walk on the pipe and you drop off it is extremely dangerous.”
Pipelife’s company website says it is Norway’s largest producer and supplier of plastic pipe systems. It has supplied several projects in Algeria, including power plants and a desalination project.
A corporate video by the firm shows pipes very similar to the ones washed up in Norfolk being tugged from fjords in Norway.
The beached pipes have attracted curious beachgoers. With a diameter of 2.4 metres the pipes are wide enough to drive a car through. Aerial footage showed two men walking on top of one of the pipes, as others took selfies.
The size of the pipes means there is no prospect of a repeat of looting scenes after the MSC Napoli ran into difficulties off the Dorset coast in 2007 and shipping containers washed ashore filled with everything from motorbikes to golf clubs and camcorders.
The pipes are the latest unusual object to wash up on the east coast. In February £50m of cocaine was found on the beach near Great Yarmouth. Last year several sperm whales died after being stranded on the coast.