Boy finds rare Lego octopus on Cornwall beach after 1997 spill

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Family handout photo of Liutauras Cemolonskas — Image caption,
Liutauras Cemolonskas has amassed 789 Lego pieces over the course of two years, as well as numerous fossils

A rare piece of Lego which fell into the sea more than 25 years ago has washed up on a beach in Cornwall.

Liutauras Cemolonskas, 13, found the plastic octopus in Marazion after a two-year long search.

The Lego piece was one of millions lost from the cargo ship Tokio Express off Land’s End in 1997, when a freak wave knocked 62 containers into the sea.

The teenager, who regularly visits the beach with his parents, said he was “happy” with the discovery.

‘Rare find’

Liutauras said he had collected almost 800 pieces of Lego from the 1990s sea spill.

About 4,200 Lego octopuses were onboard the ship.

His father Vytautas Cemolonskas, 36, said an octopus was “not easy to find”.

“We were not expecting to find it at all because it’s very rare,” he told the PA Media agency.

Vytautas Cemolonskas/PA Wire

There were 4,200 Lego octopuses onboard the cargo ship

Among the other lost Lego pieces were 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks and 92,400 swords.

Liutauras said his next goal was to find one of the 33,941 dragons that fell into the sea after the incident.

Beachcomber Tracey Williams is part of the Lego Lost At Sea project, which has spent years finding the plastic pieces since they spilled into the ocean.

Ms Williams said the octopus was often seen as the “holy grail” of finds.

She said she found one octopus in 1997 but did not recover another for 18 years.

“I think there’s something quite magical about the octopuses,” she said.