Posted on 10/29/2001 7:50:59 AM PST by Capitalist Eric
MOSCOW--Charred and rusting cavities littered with torn metal shards are all that remain of the compartments where commanders and most of the crew of the Kursk were stationed when explosions sank the nuclear submarine, investigators said Saturday.
''What happened inside these compartments was hell,'' said Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, who presented a seven-minute film shot by investigators inside the portion of the Kursk lifted from the Barents Sea floor and hauled into dry dock this month.
''Everything is littered with equipment that was destroyed in the explosion,'' Ustinov said. ''The strong alloys from which these compartments are built were simply ripped apart.''
In one part of the film, shown on Russian television, the camera focuses on the spot where the Kursk's periscope once stood--now a surreally twisted column of metal. ''The explosion ... wiped out everything here,'' Ustinov said.
The chief prosecutor is leading a team investigating the wrecked submarine that sank during naval exercises on Aug. 12, 2000, killing all 118 crewmen.
He said the Kursk's commanders and most of its crew were killed in the front compartments as two powerful explosions in the bow sent the mighty submarine to the sea bottom.
''In the 135 seconds that passed between the first and the second explosions, they did not even have time to put on lifesaving equipment,'' Ustinov said. ''But even if this equipment had been put on, there was everything here--an explosion and fire--so nothing could have survived.''
The fire spread rapidly after the blasts and raised temperatures inside the Kursk above 14,000 degrees, Ustinov said at a separate news conference in Murmansk.
Thirty-two bodies have been removed from the wreckage since it was brought to Roslyakovo, a port near Murmansk, the Russian navy's press service said late Saturday in a report cited by the Interfax news agency. Ustinov had said earlier in the day that 19 bodies had been found and 17 of them removed. Seven were identified, he said.
Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, the Russian navy's commander, said that at the request of relatives, the bodies will be transported to their hometowns and will be remembered in a farewell ceremony ''with full military honors,'' Interfax reported.
Officials have said they believe the bodies of most of the crewmen were destroyed in the explosions and fire, and they doubt they will find more than 40 bodies in the eight compartments that were lifted. The submarine had nine compartments, but the mangled bow was left undersea.
The bodies found so far had been in the stern compartments, where letters found by divers who recovered 12 bodies from the sunken vessel a year ago indicated that at least 23 sailors survived for hours after the explosions.
''We are finding the bodies of the dead, and the main cause of death is suffocation,'' Ustinov said. He said experts believe the submarine was completely flooded within eight hours at the most--but that most ran out of breathable air before they could drown.
''Those who think there was a possibility of saving our sailors should know that there was no such possibility,'' he said, echoing other officials who contended, amid criticism of the sluggish rescue effort, that nobody could have been saved.
Ustinov said the compartment housing the submarine's nuclear reactors withstood the blasts despite their force, and was only flooded by water coming through air vents and other openings. The reactors and the vessel's 22 cruise missiles are to be removed.
The cause of the disaster remains unknown. Russian officials have focused on the possibility that a torpedo misfired and exploded inside or near the Kursk during the exercise, but some say they believe it was struck by a foreign submarine or hit a World War II mine.
My guess (as would be that of most people with boat experience) is a torpedo explosion, followed by the battery exploding as it was exposed to the sea... What amazes me, is that anyone survived the initial exlosion... Simply amazing.
May the dead sailors rest in peace.
Well, maybe 1,400 F. Maybe 1,400 degrees Centigrade. But 14,000 degrees?
Thank G_d for reporters who don't fact check, and editors that don't catch typos.
Yep. An oxy-acetylene torch runs about 3500 degrees C. The surface of the sun is around 6000 degrees C. At even 14000 degrees Farenheit, I suspect all matter becomes "plasma".
August 21, 2000
TO THE VALIANT WARRIORS OF THE KURSK
From the United States Navy Submarine Force and submariners around theworld…
Toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye we have faced each other under the silent seas. Unseen, unnoticed and unknown by most of our countrymen whom we were there to protect and defend. Once enemies, now only wary observers and today only brothers….
Only we, as few others can even begin to comprehend, know the full measure and extent of your sacrifice to your country as you went about your job. We know the isolation and loneliness you endured so that others might enjoy their families in peace. We know the years of children’s lives lost and lover’s arms unfilled. We know the unforgiving hostility of the environment in which you lived, equaled only by those who go into space, not for days or weeks but months on end. We, know the knowledge you carried with you every moment tucked neatly in a box in the corner of your mind, that you walked in the belly of a beast. A capricious beast who merely tolerated your presence. One that, at any moment, might decide to allow the most insignificant part of itself malfunction and devour you, as it has done. We, understand the unspoken fears and thoughts you carried with you of just such an eventuality. We, know the close camaraderie and bonding with your fellow shipmates, each there for the other – each dependent on the other to be the very best they could be, as you faced the dark, cold, silent crushing depths together. Few men ever have the privilege of knowing the spirit of that bonding.
From that brotherhood shared, through the long days of not knowing, we were with you perhaps not in body but certainly in mind and spirit. So it is on this day with thankfulness in the final knowledge, or at least the prayer, that all of you mercifully never even had the time to even realize your fate much less experience it, we accept the finality of your passing. There but for the grace of God walk any of us, so we stand in unison and salute you … our fallen brothers.
Now our thoughts and feelings turn to those who loved you and remain in this world without you. Our prayers ask to give them strength and solace for the pain and grief they are enduring. We hope the lessons to be learned from your death and ultimate sacrifice will be seized upon, by all nations and especially by yours, and be taken to heart by those who can correct the causes and can prevent it from happening again so that your deaths will not be in vain and may someday keep other brothers from the same fate.
Nevertheless, with honor and respect we shall keep your memory alive, as we do for our own that are Forever On Patrol…….
Raymond (Rusty) W. Trent, Jr. MM2 (SS)
U.S.S. Thomas A. Edison SSBN 610 (G)
So9
My thoughts are with the families today. I hope that they can complete their grieving now and feel some comfort knowing the their sons are home from the sea. nimc/683
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