Removal of Bodies From Sub Ends

After millions of dollars, multitudes of storms and 12 recovered bodies, Russia on Tuesday ended its risky diving operation to retrieve the rest of the remains of the 118 sailors who died when the nuclear submarine Kursk exploded and sank nearly three months ago.

“The divers said they had done everything possible for the Kursk, and more,” said Northern Fleet spokesman Vladimir Navrotsky.

The end of the salvage operation closes one chapter in the saga of the doomed submarine but sets the stage for another: Next spring, the Russian navy plans to raise the 14,000-ton, 500-foot-long vessel to the surface along with its nuclear reactors and remaining dead.

The diving operation, which began a little over two weeks ago, focused on retrieving as many bodies as possible from the wreckage of the submarine, which sank Aug. 12, coming to rest on the seabed 350 feet below the surface of the Barents Sea, about 85 miles off the Arctic port of Severomorsk.

The most dramatic moment of the salvage operation came when one of the first recovered corpses was found to be carrying a note saying that nearly two dozen crewmen from the sub’s rear compartments had survived the initial accident. The note indicated that they had fled to the rear of the sub and survived for at least four hours, seeking escape, hoping for rescue and fighting despair.

The divers were able to pull only 12 bodies from that section; the others apparently were lost or inaccessible.

In recent days, teams of Norwegian, British and Russian divers have concentrated on more forward compartments. They had high hopes for retrieving bodies from compartment four, the living quarters, but they spent two days trying to clear a narrow passage of debris before giving up Tuesday, fearing damage to their diving suits. They skipped compartment five because they knew in advance that the crew was located beyond a passage too narrow for a suited diver, and compartment six, which contains the sub’s two nuclear reactors.

No radiation has been detected at the site, and the reactors are believed to have shut down immediately as a result of the accident. Drilling into the reactor region, however, is considered highly dangerous. A major goal of the spring raising operation will be to retrieve and properly store the reactors.

In recent days, work was repeatedly halted as increasing numbers of storms brought winter to the Barents Sea.

Before heading home, Norwegian and British divers did a final survey of the sub’s bulkheads and reported that the vessel’s structure appears strong enough to withstand the strain of pulling it to the surface, officials said. Details of the raising operation will be worked out over the winter.

The divers held a brief ceremony before leaving, tossing wreaths on the surface above the accident site and observing a minute of silence.

The salvage operation was coordinated by a Norwegian subsidiary of Halliburton Co., the Dallas-based oil services company, which sent its floating diving platform Regalia to the site. Russian divers were the only ones to enter the wreck; Norwegian and British divers employed by Halliburton conducted surveys of the exterior of the submarine and assisted the Russians from a submerged diving vessel.

Russian and Halliburton officials have declined to reveal the cost of the operation; various news reports have estimated the Kursk contract at between $9 million and $20 million.

The cause of the accident remains in dispute. Two underwater explosions, recorded by nearby vessels at the time of the accident, destroyed most of the sub’s first three compartments, where most crew members were stationed.

Western experts have said the sub was sunk by a massive on-board explosion, probably from the torpedo bay in the bow. The Kursk was rumored to be testing a new type of high-speed torpedo with a volatile, liquid-fuel propulsion system.

But many Russian officials, including navy chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, have clung to the theory that the sub collided with another vessel, probably one of three NATO submarines known to have been in the area at the time of the accident. Officials with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have denied that any of their subs or surface vessels came in contact with the Kursk.

Suspicions have also surrounded the salvage operation, which many Russians think was focused more on concealing sensitive information or finding the cause of the accident than on retrieving bodies.

“They are just not telling us the whole truth or hiding something from the public,” retired Vice Adm. Yevgeny Chernov said Tuesday. “The fact that they are so abruptly winding up the salvaging effort may signify that they must have accomplished whatever they were really after.”