Three bodies pulled from wreck of Russia's Kursk
Date: 26-Oct-01
Country: RUSSIA
Author: Clara Ferreira-Marques
"We have retrieved three bodies, but they have yet to be identified," Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov, head of the investigation group, said in televised comments.
"We are now working around the clock, starting from four o'clock this morning. Work is going on in shifts through the night and will continue until we are sure there are no bodies left on the submarine."
Speaking in Roslyakovo, a dock near Russia's Arctic port of Murmansk, where the recovery operation is taking place, Ustinov said that once all bodies were recovered, the teams would proceed with "research into other areas".
The nuclear-powered Kursk was raised from the Barents Sea, lashed to a giant barge and brought into Roslyakovo earlier this month in a meticulous operation lasting several weeks.
Twelve bodies were pulled from the wreck when divers picked their way gingerly through the wreck a year ago. They withdrew when their operations were deemed too dangerous.
NTV television reported that the two reactors aboard the Kursk were in good condition. Interfax news agency quoted an official from the Russian navy's Northern Fleet as saying radiation levels inside the stricken vessel were normal.
REACTOR, MISSILES UNDAMAGED
Navy commander Vladimir Kuroyedov, also quoted by Interfax, said the Kursk's 22 cruise missiles, one of the security concerns overshadowing the salvage operation, were undamaged by the two explosions that ripped through the vessel's bow on August 12, 2000.
He said operations would soon begin to remove them.
The cause of the explosions which wrecked the Kursk has yet to be explained. The Russian navy has ruled out any detonation of the missiles.
Ustinov had earlier said it would take at least a month to find and identify all the bodies, but yesterday he said investigators had been too cautious.
"We thought everything would be worse," Interfax quoted him as saying. He said the bodies would be easily identified by their features as well as by identification tags and notebooks.
The unprecedented operation of removing nuclear fuel from the Kursk's reactors has been a prime concern of environmentalists. No such operation has ever been conducted on a "dead submarine" incapable of independent operation.
The Kursk disaster and the botched efforts to rescue the crew shocked Russia and prompted fierce criticism of President Vladimir Putin, who remained on holiday on the Black Sea as the crisis unfolded.
Putin later vowed to raise the Kursk at any cost and return the servicemen's remains to their relatives for proper burial.