Vast quantities of LEGO pieces lost at sea in 1997

[Prince Kahuka]

I was catching up on my Wired magazines last week and found a LEGO reference. It says 817,600 LEGO pieces were lost at sea near England in 1997 while headed to New York. A search led me to this US News & World Report article, which puts the number almost 6 times higher at 4,756,940 pieces, and this Independent article which also says 5 million pieces. I guess these were bulk parts, sorted by type into big tubs, which were meant to be packed into about 10 different sets at Enfield. The different articles list a bunch of different element types lost, like witches hats and scuba flippers, and I also found references to a complete manifest of lost elements and quantities, but wasn't able to find the manifest.

I wonder if and how LEGO replaced all the parts needed to be put into the different sets?

[thepatient]

I read about this about a year ago in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. According to that article, after ten years later little frying pans and witches hats were still washing up on beaches in Scotland, Africa, and South America.