Russian nuclear sub sinks in Arctic

["Fred Dawson" <fd003f0606@blueyonder.co.uk>]

BBC reports a Russian nuclear submarine with at least 10 crew on board has

sunk in the Barents Sea.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3193625.stm



A spokesman for Russia's Northern Fleet said only one of the crew had been

rescued so far and the bodies of two others had been retrieved, the Interfax

news agency reports. A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman told Ekho Moskvy

radio the submarine's nuclear reactor was shut down at the time it sank at

0400 local time (0200 GMT) about three miles off Kildin Island, in heavy

seas. The spokesman said there were no weapons on board the vessel and there

was no danger of nuclear contamination. He said rescue efforts were

continuing. The submarine - a November class K-159 - had been decommissioned

in 1989 and was on its way to be stripped off its nuclear reactor and then

to be scrapped, the Northern Fleet's spokesman said. The spokesman said the

vessel was being towed on four floating hulls from its base in the town of

Gremikha to a plant in the town of Polarnye to be scrapped. He said the

vessel became unstable after one of the hulls was torn off in a fierce storm

and then sank in waters 170 metres deep. A Russian military prosecutor has

opened an inquiry into the incident. It comes three years after Russia's

worst peacetime naval disaster when all 118 crew of the nuclear submarine

Kursk died when it sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August 2000.

===============================

Fred Dawson

England







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