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Reuters
MOSCOW
- The Russian navy confirmed on Thursday that a letter had
been found in the pocket of a dead crew member retrieved
from the sunken Kursk submarine, showing that many of the
118 crew had not died instantly.
The Northern Fleet's chief of staff, Vice-Admiral Mikhail
Motsak, said in a televised statement that the letter found
in the pocket of Lieutenant-Colonel Mikhail Kolesnikov was
private and would be handed to relatives. But he added it
contained some important information about August's accident
in the Barents Sea.
Motsak said the letter had been written within the two hours
after 1:15 p.m. on August 12 and that crew members from
several sections had managed to gather in the rear part
of the vessel but failed to escape.
Earlier, officials said most of the crew had died in a minute
or two after the blast which destroyed the submarine.
Motsak did not say how many crew members the letter had
referred to, but said it was most of the members of sections
six, seven and eight. Itar-Tass news agency said earlier
the letter mentioned 23 people.
Associated Press
Excerpts
From Doomed Sailor's Note
MOSCOW
–– Excerpts of a message written by Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov,
a 27-year-old officer on the nuclear submarine Kursk hours
after the submarine sank on Aug. 12, according to navy chief
Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov: "All the crew from the sixth, seventh
and eighth compartments went over to the ninth. There are
23 people here. We made this decision as a result of the
accident. None of us can get to the surface." "I am writing
blindly," the message continued later in disorderly handwriting
after the lights went off. The message contained lines written
to Kolesnikov's family, which officials declined to release.
Officer's
tragic note gives glimpse of last moments of Kursk crew
SEVEROMORSK, Russia, Oct 26 (AFP) - A note scribbled by
an officer on Russia's Kursk nuclear submarine revealed
Thursday that at least 23 of its 118 crew survived the explosions
which sank the vessel and tried to seek safety at its rear.
Lieutenant-Captain Dmitry Kolesnikov's stark message contradicted
official claims that most of the crew died shortly after
two unexplained blasts sent the submarine to the bottom
of the Barents Sea on August 12. Northern Fleet Chief-of-Staff
Mikhail Motsak said rescue workers found the message in
Kolesnikov's pocket when they raised his body and three
others from the craft. The note was the first direct testimony
to reach the outside world of conditions aboard the Kursk
moments after the disaster, a tragedy which kept Russians
glued to their television screens. The reverse side of the
note contained a poignant message from Kolesnikov to his
new bride, which Motsak refused to divulge. Writing blind,
Kolesnikov scribbled down the phrase: "13:15. The whole
crew of the sixth, seventh and eight sections have moved
into the ninth. "There are 23 of us here. We made this decision
(to move back) as a result of the accident. None of us have
been able to get out," he wrote. Kolesnikov's widow Olga,
who only married the 30-year-old this year, wept as she
spoke of her desire to see her husband's face one more time.
"I heard the official announcement on the television at
2:00 pm," she said. "I'm preparing to meet him. He's my
dearest relative, he's my love. I want to see him one more
time. I want to read his letter," she said, wiping away
tears with a handkerchief. The note was written over a 100-minute
span on the day the disaster struck, Motsak said. Kolesnikov
wrote that at least two or three crew members would try
to escape the craft through an emergency escape hatch. The
navy chief-of-staff said flooding had probably thwarted
those efforts. The note also suggested that the crew had
opted to ignore the rule book which states that all hatches
separating the craft's sections must be sealed in the event
of an accident to prevent flooding. The development also
undermined the official version of events surrounding Russia's
worst post-Soviet maritime disaster. Navy commanders and
ministers had at first said that some Kursk survivors were
communicating with rescuers by banging against the craft's
hull. The government later retracted, saying the banging
had been a mechanical noise and that the rescue operation
was doomed from the start because almost everyone had died
in the first few minutes of the disaster. Meanwhile, high
winds and heavy seas Thursday forced divers to suspend the
search for more bodies, although President Vladimir Putin
vowed to continue the recovery operation "whatever the difficulties"
so the state could honour "these hero-sailors." The promise
clashed with comments by Igor Spasky, whose firm designed
the Kursk and signed the contract to recover the bodies.
He said the search could be halted if 23-24 corpses were
found in the boat's rear compartment as proceeding further
could endanger the lives of the divers. Putin also insisted
the recovery operation would be conducted "in the greatest
of openness, including the (inquiry) into the causes of
the catastrophe." An official commission should confirm
the most likely explanation for the tragedy at November
8 meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said. Navy
chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov said earlier this week
that he was "80 percent certain" that the Kursk had been
sunk by a collision with another submarine. Washington and
London deny involvement and Western intelligence reports
say fuel in one of the Kursk's torpedoes probably caught
fire causing the blasts that sank the craft.
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