LONDON, Dec 10 — A "major" clean-up operation was ongoing in southern England yesterday after eight containers of bananas went overboard a cargo ship, with hundreds of rotting fruits washing up along the shoreline.

Some 16 containers were lost to sea by a cargo ship on Saturday, including eight containing bananas, two with plantains and one carrying avocados, the UK coastguard said.

Since then, hundreds of bunched-up bananas destined for Tesco supermarkets had washed ashore on pebbled beaches in West Sussex, with the coastguard urging the public to avoid areas littered with banana debris.

Damaged shipping containers also washed up in the seaside town of Selsey, where volunteers gathered the scattered bananas in garbage bags to be cleared away, an AFP photographer saw.

"A major clean-up operation is underway following several shipping containers washing up on the West Sussex shoreline," the local council said in a statement Tuesday.

The coastguard on Monday deployed a helicopter and aircraft to search for five containers that had not yet washed ashore.

Authorities also warned the public against helping themselves to the fruit. — AFP