Russian Officer Admits "Worst Expectations" for Sunken SubA senior Russian officer said Saturday that the crew in the front part of the sunken submarine Kursk most likely died immediately a week ago and that chances of survival for the rest are almost zero.All the personnel in the nose section of the Kursk probably perished in the flooding in the first minutes of the accident, chief of the Russian Northern Fleet Staff Mikhail Motsak told the RTR television. The Kursk has a crew of 118. It went down last Saturday while participating in a naval exercise of the Northern Fleet. A special government commission has established an explosion inside the sub as the most probable cause of the disaster. "We have crossed the critical guaranteed life support limit that we had set for the personnel in the guidance manuals. A critical situation for the crew has apparently begun. No matter how hard it is to say, we have to state the worst expectations," Motsak said. He described the accident as "the worst catastrophe in the history of the underwater fleet." Russian rescue efforts continued Saturday despite repeated failures over the week. Outside assistance from Britain and Norway will arrive at the site of the accident later Saturday, but they may be too late for the crew. Rescue vehicles succeeded in latching onto the escape hatch twice, but were unable to create a watertight seal and pump out the seawater. Deformation of the hatch, likely caused when the vessel struckthe bottom, is considered the main factor behind these failures. The Norwegian ship "Normand Pioneer" carrying the British mini-submarine "LR5" is expected to arrive on the scene at about 9 p.m.Moscow time (1700 GMT) to attempt to dock the Kursk. "We are pinning our greatest hopes on the Norwegians, who are bringing deep-sea divers. We hope they will either help dock the Northern Fleet's rescue sub or latch the mini-submarine they are bringing themselves" onto the Kursk, said Mikhail Yevdokimov, governor of the northern Murmansk region. |
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