11 Bodies Taken from Kursk
MOSCOW (AP) - Investigators have pulled the remains of 11 sailors from the nuclear submarine Kursk and spotted three more bodies inside, Russia's prosecutor-general said Friday.
Three of the bodies were removed from the wreck on Thursday and the other eight on Friday, Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
``Exactly how many of our heroes we'll manage to get out of the vessel is still hard to say, but in the ninth compartment there are at least three bodies,'' Ustinov said.
Meanwhile, investigators entered the reactor section of the submarine, Interfax said, citing naval Commander in chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov.
``Once again we saw that everything was in order in the section. There is no water and background radiation is within permitted limits,'' Kuroyedov said.
Adm. Vyacheslav Popov, Russia's Northern Fleet commander, told Interfax that the investigators would cut all cables and weld shut all the openings in the compartment where the vessel's two nuclear reactors are located. He said that the same procedures are followed when decommissioned submarines are dismantled.
Ustinov is leading the team of investigators examining the mangled wreck of the Kursk in a dry dock in Roslyakovo, near the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk.
The bulk of the Kursk was raised from the Barents Sea floor on Oct. 8 in a $65 million salvage operation performed by the Dutch consortium Mammoet-Smit International. The mangled forward compartment where the Kursk's torpedoes were located was left on the bottom of the sea out of concern that it could break off and jeopardize the lifting operation.
Forensic experts moved into the Kursk once it was dried out Thursday. They quickly took out bodies to minimize contact with the air, which damages the remains.
Russian officials say most of the Kursk's 118 sailors were killed immediately by powerful explosions that sank the submarine during naval exercises in August 2000. At least 23 survived the crash for hours in the stern compartments, according to letters found by divers who recovered 12 bodies from the sunken vessel a year ago.
After the remains are recovered, the next task will be to secure the Kursk's nuclear reactors and its 22 Granit cruise missiles.
Originally published October 26, 2001.
