One of the biggest shows ever to be staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has had to cancel its opening performance after its set was destroyed by Colombian narcotics police.

Fuerzabruta, a spectacular theatrical show from Argentina, was due to be first performed in a huge black tent staged on the dockside of the city's Ocean Terminal on Thursday next week at the beginning of the annual festival season.

However, those plans were made before the show, which features a large swimming pool held above the heads of its 1200-strong audience, fell foul of the rather over-enthusiastic attentions of Cartagena's finest.

Last week, after a six-week residency in Bogota, Colombia, the complex and extensive set for the show was professionally packed and stored in six metal containers, and awaited shipping at Cartagena docks.

However, the local narcotics police decided to "raid" the containers, slashing and puncturing the delicately rolled-up swimming pool equipment with knives, and drilling through the "trussing", or metal supports, to check for illegal drugs.

The most painful loss for the show was the swimming pool, which forms the centrepiece of the show, and has an especially designed reinforced vinyl lining to hold the water safely above the heads of the audience.

Now the show is to begin its Fringe run on Saturday next week instead, and will also stage an additional show the following day.

In the meantime, engineers are working 12-hour shifts to repair the structural damage while the company awaits a new pool from Argentina it is hiring .

Yesterday, Michel Boersma, the executive producer of Fuerzabruta, said the damage had cost at least $200,000 (£98,500) but that the performances would not be affected beyond next weekend.

He also said he could now say the old theatrical imperative "the show must go on" in the six different languages he has had to use to sort out the crisis.

"What I said when we opened the containers when they arrived at Edinburgh docks, well, it probably cannot be repeated in a newspaper," Mr Boersma said.

"We could not believe what we were seeing. There was just shock and silence.

"This is all specialised equipment, this huge swimming pool in particular, and for it to work it all has to be in tip-top condition.

"We have ordered a new pool, but it is in Buenos Aires and will now have to be especially flown over, and we have six welders working from 9am to 9pm every day on the metal damage."

A statement released by the show's producers added: "Fuerzabruta has travelled from Argentina to Lisbon and then on to London without hitch, something had to go wrong when it got to Bogota.

"However, the technical team along with an amazing transportation company have worked around the clock to make sure that the show is ready as quickly as possible, and a new swimming pool has been made in the record time of three days and currently being flown to Edinburgh from Argentina."

Mr Boersma said the production team was now looking at the insurance consequences of the police intervention but his main concern was "getting the show reading in time for the Fringe."

Fuerzabruta is to run for five weeks.

It describes itself as consisting of "a powerful music score, strobe lighting, moderate nudity, lots of water, scenes of a poetic, violent and beautiful nature and a whole lot of mess. It is an all-standing rave of a show".

The black tent used for the show is believed one of the world's largest touring venues.