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| Top Stories News - updated 10:43 AM ET Aug 24 |
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Kursk Rescuers Say Russians Hampered Operations
OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian and British teams sent to the aid of the 118 Russian submariners, who died after the Kursk nuclear sub sank, criticized Moscow Thursday for giving the wrong information and hampering their rescue mission. A Norwegian military commander said he had threatened to call off his rescue bid for the Kursk because of poor information. A member of the British submersible team rushed to the aid of the Kursk, trapped on the bottom of the Barents Sea, said Russian prevarication obstructed their mission, media reported. ``I was really angry,'' the north Norwegian daily Nordlandsposten quoted Rear Admiral Einar Skorgen as saying in an interview of Russian data about the Kursk nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea. The Norwegian-led team of eight British and four Norwegian divers concluded Monday that all 118 crew aboard the Kursk were dead after the divers opened a hatch on the submarine and found the vessel was flooded with water. The Kursk sank on August 12 after two explosions damaged its front section and its two nuclear reactors were shut down. Early reports said signals tapped on the hull by crewmen inside the stricken vessel fell silent on August 14. Paddy Heron, part of a team sent from Britain with a state-of-the-art LR5 rescue mini-submarine, said his team was ''bitterly disappointed'' the Russians had not permitted them to perform the rescue job they had been rushed to the scene for. ``Any arrangement or proposed operation that they spoke about was rescinded, gone back on, altered or countermanded,'' Heron said in an interview with BBC Scotland television, the broadcaster said in a report on its online service. Heron said the British team had been ``revolted'' to hear the Russians say they had done everything they could. ``We had one of the most sophisticated vessels available in Europe sitting at the wreck site with a submersible specifically designed to rescue men from submarines. The Russians would not let us use that,'' he said. Skorgen, heading the Norwegian divers' mission and head of the armed forces in North Norway, said he telephoned the Northern Fleet to say the mission would be in jeopardy unless Russia provided correct data. ``I think this was understood as a threat from my side, yes,'' he said. ``At times there were so many wrong details and disinformation from Russia that it was close to endangering the divers,'' Skorgen said. ``We couldn't rely on the information we were getting,'' he said.
Skorgen said, however, that the operation was helped by a ''hot-line'' to Northern Fleet headquarters from his offices in Bodoe, northern Norway. The line was set up in 1999 and was used for a first time during the submarine crisis. After one call to Northern Fleet headquarters seeking information about the construction of an emergency hatch, Skorgen said that commander Vyacheslav Popov took charge. ``He personally took over and ensured that our experts were flown by helicopter to another submarine of the Oscar II class to study hatches and links,'' Skorgen said.
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