Divers attach cables to lift Russian sub

Associated Press

MOSCOW — Divers crawled along the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine Tuesday, attaching cables lowered from a gigantic barge that is expected to hoist the submarine to the surface this week.

Late Monday, divers reached the Kursk, lying 356 feet below the Barents Sea, and took about 12 hours to attach the first two of 26 lifting cables, said Russian Northern Fleet spokesman Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky.

With the sea beginning to calm, the task of raising the sunken submarine is expected to accelerate, Navrotsky said. "The weather has just begun to create normal conditions for the work," he said in remarks carried by Russian television.

But Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is in charge of the salvage operation, said later in a televised hookup from a ship near the site that seas were still high enough to make the divers’ work "slow and difficult." He added, "We have still decided to go ahead."

It will take divers up to 2 1/2 days to attach all 26 cables, Navrotsky said. After that, lifting the submarine out of the sea will take about 12 hours, unless weather conditions turn foul.

The lifting was originally set for Sept. 15, but it has been repeatedly delayed because of storms and technical difficulties.

The Dutch Mammoet-Smit International consortium, working on a $65 million contract from the Russian government, was concerned that a storm raging in the area over the last few days might have knocked the Giant 4 barge off its position over the Kursk.

But after divers hooked the first cables to the nuclear submarine, it was clear that the barge had remained in the right place. Being in the right position over the Kursk is essential for the computer-controlled lifting operation, Navrotsky said.

The Kursk exploded and sank during naval exercises in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing the entire 118-man crew. Russian officials want to raise the submarine to try to solve the mystery of its sinking and to remove any potential environmental threats from its twin nuclear reactors.