US and British planes carrying robotic undersea vehicles landed in Russia's far east yesterday to help rescue seven sailors trapped in a mini-submarine deep in the Pacific.
Authorities plan to use the unmanned submersibles, known as Super Scorpios, to investigate the accident site and possibly cut the sub loose from entanglements that have held it some 190m below the surface since Thursday.
Rescuers made contact with the crew last night and said their condition was "satisfactory," despite temperatures as low as 5oC, Russian Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Fyodorov said.
Russia's plea for international assistance underlined the deficiencies of its once-mighty navy and strongly contrasted with the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk five years ago, when authorities held off asking for help until hope was nearly exhausted. All 118 crew died in that accident.
But even with Moscow's quick call for help, rescue workers were racing to free the men before their oxygen supply ran out.
Navy officials have given various estimates of the air supply. Some say it could last into tomorrow. Rear Admiral Vladimir Pepelyayev, deputy head of the navy's general staff, said yesterday that the air would likely last to the end of the day and possibly through today.
"I think it should be enough to last to the end of the [rescue] operation," he said.
Navy spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo said rescue efforts involving the US and British equipment could begin around 8pm Moscow time, Russian news agencies reported. But by early afternoon, the vehicles had not been loaded onto ships in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the rain-soaked Kamchatka peninsula.
Georgy Romanovich, spokesman for the rescue operation headquarters, said it would take five hours for a ship carrying the equipment to reach the site in Beryozovaya Bay, about 75km south of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital of the peninsula region north of Japan and west of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
The vessel, which had been participating in a combat training exercise, got caught on an underwater antenna assembly that is part of Russia's coastal monitoring system.
Officials have said the sub's propeller initially became ensnared in a fishing net.
The Interfax news agency quoted Fyodorov as saying crews planned to try to blow up the anchoring system in an effort to free the vessel, but it was unclear how that would be done.
Apparently lacking rescue vehicles capable of operating at the depth where the sub is stranded, the cash-strapped Russian navy's rescue efforts have focused on trying to grab and drag the sub with a trawling apparatus.
Dygalo earlier said that rescuers had managed to move the sub about 60m toward shore by hooking onto a part of the underwater antenna on which the sub was caught, but reports said the hauling system then became unattached.
"We won't try to drag it any-more. We will try to lift the whole system, rip it off and bring it to the surface," Fyodorov said on NTV television.
The events and the array of confusing and contradictory statements darkly echoed the sinking of the Kursk. That disaster shocked Russians and demonstrated that the once-mighty navy had deteriorated as funding dried up following the 1991 Soviet collapse.
The new crisis indicated that promises by Russian President Vladimir Putin to improve the navy's equipment have had little effect. Putin was criticized for his slow response to the Kursk crisis and reluctance to accept foreign help. By midday yesterday, Putin had made no public comment.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS