Salvage team due at submarine disaster site

The international team aiming to raise sunken Russian nuclear submarine the Kursk was today due to arrive at the wreck site in the Barents Sea.

The 80-strong crew - including British, Russian, Norwegian and Dutch divers and support staff - left Aberdeen harbour in Scotland a week ago following intensive training and equipment preparations to their ship, the Mayo.

The North Sea D.P diving support vessel, operated by Aberdeen-based diving company DSND Subsea, is expected to reach the site this afternoon.

A spokesman for the Aberdeen firm said the vessel will arrive in Kirkness, about 300km north-east of Norway, at a depth of 108 metres.

He said the crew would spend a few days making final preparations before heading out to the wreck.

Dutch contractors Mammoet Transport and Smit International are leading the salvage attempt, with Mammoet carrying out the lifting operation and Smit in charge of the underwater work.

The team will first prepare the wreck for the 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.

The team then hopes to raise the vessel using a pontoon with 20 anchored lifting units, before it is transported to Murmansk and floated into a dry dock.

All 118 crewmen on board the Kursk were killed when the submarine sank on August 12 last year after it was rocked by a series of explosions during a training exercise.

British divers were involved in the first mission to find survivors when they sailed on the Normand Pioneer supply ship from the Norwegian port of Trondheim five days later.

But the rescue attempts were abandoned on August 21 when the submarine was found to be entirely flooded.