Salvage team prepares to leave for Kursk

The international team bidding to raise the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk made last preparations today ahead of their departure from Scotland for the wreck site.

The sub is at the bottom of the Barents Sea after an unexplained series of explosions sank the vessel off the Norwegian coast on August 12th, 2000, with the loss of all 118 crew on board.

Moscow's decision to lift the 20,000-tonne Kursk from the seabed is seen as a bid to close the book on one of the most tragic episodes in Russian military history.

The salvage crew, who include British, Russian, Norwegian and Dutch divers and support staff, are due to leave Aberdeen, northeast Scotland, later today or early tomorrow on the North Sea diving support vessel Mayo.

They were completing a "familiarisation" briefing today.

The team should take about a week to reach the site where they will prepare the wreck for a lifting operation, planned for mid-September, by clearing the submarine of soil and cutting holes into the vessel to allow lifting equipment to be attached.

A spokeswoman for Dutch contractors Mammoet Transport, who are carrying out the operation, said: "The team is now loading the ship with equipment, and as soon as that is finished we will be leaving.

"I expect that to be late on Friday evening, or perhaps in the early hours of Saturday morning. The familiarisation programme is still ongoing, and that should be completed later on Friday."

Several Russian ships have already left the Arctic port of Severomorsk for the wreckage site. There will be more than 20 vessels moored over the Kursk at the height of the operation, which will be run from the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great.

The unprecedented operation is likely to cost nearly 80 million dollars (95 million euros), although the Russian government is refusing to give figures.

The Russian navy insists there were no nuclear weapons aboard when the sub went down, although opponents fear either of the Kursk's two nuclear reactors could break up and leak should something go wrong during the salvage, polluting the Arctic waters.

There was a mission to find survivors in the stricken submarine soon after it sank, but it was found to be entirely flooded.

AFP