Newsday
MOSCOW – Eleven months after a Russian nuclear-powered submarine sank in the Arctic Ocean, an international team is to begin this week an attempt to raise it without triggering its torpedoes or spilling radiation from its reactors.
Officials with the Russian navy and the Dutch companies hired to lift the submarine, the Kursk, said the first divers are due in the next several days at the site, above the Arctic Circle. They will race against the calendar and the onset of winter to recover the Kursk by late September.
During Russian naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea in August, two unexplained explosions sank the sub, killing its 118 crew members. Russian President Vladimir Putin promised families of the crew that the bodies would be recovered.
While acknowledging the risks of the operation, the officials contend that they are manageable. The salvagers will cut off the damaged nose of the sub and lift the remainder about 350 feet to the surface.
“The danger is there. … But we think we can control this danger. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do this operation,” said Lars Walder, a spokesman for Smit International, a Dutch salvage company that will work with Mammoet, a Dutch company that specializes in heavy lifting projects, and the Russian navy.
Critics say Russia is pressing ahead with the project too quickly. The Russian government decided abruptly in May to hire Smit and Mammoet after another consortium reportedly wanted to postpone the operation until summer 2002.
Last week, the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority requested more information about the safety precautions taken for the project, and noted the risk of an environmentally damaging leak from the Kursk’s two reactors, which are in the portion to be lifted.
“It is better to wait a year,” Per Strand, a spokesman for the Radiation Protection Authority, said in an interview. “The Barents Sea is one of the richest fishing areas in the world. … Even small releases are unnecessary.”
Russian officials and experts have said that the reactors – which they believe shut down when the accident occurred – are being closely monitored.
Whether the operation will help explain what sank the Kursk is uncertain.
Some experts suggest there were problems with the torpedoes, while Russia’s navy contends there might have been a collision with a foreign submarine.
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