Some Lived Through Kursk Explosions

Friday October 27 8:51 AM ET

By IVAN SEKRETAREV, Associated Press Writer

    MURMANSK, Russia (AP) - Stormy seas prevented divers from entering the nuclear submarine Kursk (news - web sites) on Friday, a day after naval officials revealed evidence that more than 20 seamen had survived the initial explosions that sank the vessel.

    Meanwhile, anger against the government for its slow and confused response to the Aug. 12 disaster was revived after officials found an emotional letter in the pocket of a dead crewman describing the survivors' moments after the catastrophe.

    ``The Kursk crew has been buried alive,'' Veronika Marchenko, head of the anti-military association Mother's Right, said in a statement issued Friday. ``The government was trying to solve all possible problems, such as concealing the tragedy, protecting military secrets, raising the plummeting popularity of the president, paying off too-persistent relatives or hushing up honest journalists. All except one: acting quickly to save the crew.''

    ``We should think what to do to make the government value citizens' lives more than oil, military secrets or its own prestige.''

    Winds of up to 56 mph and a force-six gale in the Barents Sea kept divers away from the wreck Friday due to the danger of being jerked about on their tethers, said Northern Fleet spokesman Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky.

    ``The weather is worsening, with a snowstorm raging around the rescue site,'' he said.

    On Wednesday, divers recovered four bodies from the Kursk's eighth and ninth compartments. Officials found a note in the pocket of a submariner identified as Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov, which gave the first firm indication that some of the sailors had remained alive for at least several hours after the explosions that sank the submarine.

    Fragments from Kolesnikov's message told a horrifying story of the submariners' struggle for life, saying 23 survivors had gathered in a compartment in the stern, hoping to get out through the escape hatch.

    Most of the Kursk's crew of 118 apparently died instantly in the explosions that sent a giant fireball and shock wave ripping through the first five compartments, or perished within minutes as water roared into the submarine.

    But the revelation that some died a slow and torturous death - by drowning, hypothermia or suffocation - has brought back the horror that gripped the nation in the days after the disaster. And once again, it called into question whether the government could have saved some of the crew if it had not balked for days at accepting foreign aid.

    After the Kursk sank, Russian submersibles were unable to latch onto the hatch, and the cash-strapped navy didn't have deep-sea divers who could enter the submarine. When Norwegian divers were finally invited to perform the work, four days after the sinking, they did it within hours.

    The newspaper Segodnya said Kolesnikov's note was ``deadly for the government.''

    ``The authorities buried the Kursk too early, maybe even when it was still alive,'' it said.

    Kolesnikov's note gave no indication of whether any of the crew had survived beyond a few hours. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov quickly ruled out Thursday that there was any chance to save any of the crew.

    Northern Fleet commander Adm. Vyacheslav Popov said Friday he believed no seamen could have survived longer than one day.

    ``The time of death can be established only by forensic expertise,'' he said. ``As a submariner, I can only assume that the crew died no later than Aug. 13, and most likely before midnight of Aug. 12.''

    The statement has puzzled some experts and drew suspicions that the navy officials were withholding some information.

    ``They could have died within 24 hours or they could have lasted longer than that,'' said Clifford Beal, editor of Jane's Defense Weekly in London. ``Unless Adm. Popov has more information than he is giving out, I don't see how he could say that at this point.''

    ``The level of disinformation on the part of the Northern Fleet during the rescue operation makes me doubtful that we can trust even the information they are giving out now,'' Beal said.

    Popov said he had little hope the divers would be able to recover all the bodies from the ninth compartment, which is littered with equipment dislodged from stowage places by the explosions. He said it took divers more than two hours to recover one body that had been squeezed between two metal cases.

    ``It's very difficult for the divers to move inside the ninth compartment,'' he said. Nevertheless, he said the divers would try to remove as many bodies as they could when the weather permits. The Navy has previously said it would cancel the operation if it is too risky for the divers.

    Officials initially planned to hold a memorial ceremony Saturday in Severomorsk, the headquarters of the Northern Fleet, but postponed it because of the gale that prevented helicopters from bringing the four bodies to the shore.