#5
The Independent (UK)
26 October 2001
Russians pull bodies from the raised 'Kursk'
By Anne Penketh

Russian investigators opened another chapter in the grisly history of the Kursk when they entered the submarine wreck for the first time and began pulling bodies from the stricken vessel.

"It is a very, very, very remarkable sight," said the prosecutor-general, Vladimir Ustinov, leading the team of investigators who boarded the nuclear submarine whose forward section was brought into dry dock near Murmansk at the weekend.

The bow section, containing the vessel's torpedoes which may have caused the disaster, is due to be raised next year.

All 118 crew members on board the Kursk perished when powerful explosions sank the submarine in August last year during naval exercises in the Barents Sea.

Twelve bodies were recovered by divers last year. A note found in the pocket of one of them said that 23 had survived the crash for hours in the stern compartments.

Mr Ustinov told Russian television that the view inside the submarine defied description. "The clearest example of the massive destruction ... can be seen in the first three compartments where there is a pile of twisted metal," he said.

Three bodies were removed from the submarine's rear section after the water was pumped out from inside.

The naval teams, working round the clock, plan to recover the remaining bodies as quickly as possible to avoid them being damaged by contact with the air. But many of the crew members may have been vaporised by the explosions.

The team of forensic experts that went on board included chemical, biological and radiation experts from Russia's Northern Fleet.

Once the sailors' bodies have been brought out of the wreck, the team's next task will be to investigate and secure the Kursk's two nuclear reactors and its 22 Granit cruise missiles.

There has been concern about the state of the missiles, which have been lying on the seabed for more than a year, but a Northern Fleet spokesman, Vladimir Navrotsky, said the silos containing the missiles apparently had not been damaged, allowing navy experts to remove the weapons safely in a normal fashion.

Experts were hoping to enter the reactor compartment last night to check its condition and make sure that it was properly heated to keep it from freezing overnight.

Water samples taken from inside the reactor compartment confirmed that there had been no radiation leak.

Mr Ustinov said that the bodies may provide some clues as to what happened when the submarine went down, although the investigation would take time to reach a conclusion.

The disaster has still not been fully explained, although possible theories include an explosion caused by a faulty torpedo. Some Russian naval commanders are still clinging to the belief that the submarine went down after colliding with a foreign submarine.

"We will unravel this mystery. We will not conceal it from society," Mr Ustinov said.

The Kursk was raised from the seabed on 8 October in a three-month, £45m salvage operation carried out by the Dutch Mammoet-Smit International consortium, which also involved many British and Russian expert divers.

Sceptics say that if any clue to the cause of the disaster could be found, it would be located in the submarine's mangled first compartment, which was left behind.

Relatives are being kept away from the dry dock for fear of rekindling passions. Many fear that they may never be told the true story of what happened to their loved ones, given the official lies and misinformation that has marked the tragedy since the outset.

For two days after the sinking, the Russian navy said nothing before announcing that the submarine had sunk.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was criticised for deciding against cutting short his Black Sea vacation. Crucially, offers of outside help were refused for a week.

A Scottish-Norwegian diving team finally gained access to the submarine, but too late to save any of the crew.

Mr Putin has promised to return the sailors' bodies to their relatives for proper burial.

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