MOSCOW Divers have halted dangerous work on the aft section of the sunken submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea but will cut through the hull further forward to search for more bodies, a Russian Navy spokesman said on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Northern Fleet told Reuters the divers would try to go into the submarine's third section, believed to hold more than 20 bodies.
"In the ninth (section) where 12 bodies were retrieved, the divers cannot do any more.
To go any further could put their lives at risk," the spokesman said.
"Now the most important thing is to lift as many bodies as possible in the time we have left," he said. Rescue efforts have at times been hampered by storms and bad weather conditions, worsening with the rapid onset of the Arctic winter.
All 118 crew on the Kursk died when it sank in August. The multinational team of divers, with Russians working inside the wreck and Norwegian divers outside, have brought up 12 bodies over the past week.
They have so far worked on the vessel's ninth section, where a note found on one of the dead sailors said 23 crew members had scrambled after the submarine was rocked by two blasts.
The raising of the bodies has been met by a nationwide outpouring of grief. Top officials attended a moving ceremony for the first four bodies at the fleet's base on Sunday.
But the note, found on the body of lieutenant captain Dmitry Kolesnikov, has also sparked some anger. It proved that some of the sailors died slowly, reviving earlier suggestions that officials were too slow to launch a rescue.
(Reuter)