Sunken N-sub rescue begins

Russian rescue teams last night began an attempt to save the 116 men who have been trapped 150m under the Barents Sea on the crippled nuclear submarine Kursk since Monday.

It is understood they took advantage of a lull in a fierce storm which has been battering the surface fleet above the 10,700-tonne Kursk with 3m waves.

The announcement of the rescue bid came from Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev, who gave few details about how the evacuation was being done.

It was in sharp contrast to earlier statements from senior Russian naval officials who were extremely pessimistic about the sailors' chances of surviving their ordeal.

One spokesman said that attempts to link the Kolokol deep-sea diving bell to the Kursk to supply it with much-needed oxygen and power had failed.

Because an unaided rescue is thought to be near-impossible at 150m, the crew's best hope of survival appears to lie with the Russian Northern Fleet's India-class rescue submarine, which has two deep submergence rescue vehicles (DSRVs).

The DSRVs could dock over the submarine's escape hatch and around 20 men at a time could be transferred to the surface. But some Western sources doubt that the DSRVs are in working order.

Another suggestion was that the Kolokol could do the job. A Russian news agency said the Kolokol could rescue 10 to 15 people at a time.

However, rescuers were expected to face problems with the position of the stricken submarine. Some reports last night said that it was listing on the bottom at an angle of 60 degrees. This would make a rescue extremely difficult, if not impossible, because the rescue craft are designed to link with a submarine listing at no more than 45 degrees.

Russian TV said underwater viewing devices showed that the bow of the submarine was badly damaged and flooded.

Conditions inside the vessel are not known. The only communication appears to have been the sound of sailors banging on the hull.

Some naval experts say the submarine would have no more than a 72-hour oxygen supply.

Navy spokesman Captain Igor Babenko admitted that officials had no contact with the sub and had no idea how much air was left or if any of the crew were injured or dead.

And Navy chief administrator Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov said: "The chances of a positive outcome are not high."

The Kursk lost contact with around 30 other vessels when it sank during a big Russian naval exercise in the Arctic on Monday.

What caused the sinking remains unknown.

Theories include a collision with a foreign submarine, a leak after a practice torpedo firing or an explosion near the forward part of the ship.

About a dozen Russian military ships, including a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, were last night braving the storm above the crippled Kursk.

The Russians insist they have the technology to rescue their men but some in the West doubt it.

Russian officials said the Kursk was not carrying nuclear weapons and its two nuclear reactors had been switched off.

But the reports of serious damage raised concerns about a possible radioactive leak.

In Auckland last night, a former submarine officer said the sailors were probably experiencing ghastly conditions on board as they waited for a rescue which might not come.

Dr Desmond Gorman, now a professor of medicine at the University of Auckland, said the fact that the sailors had not escaped to the surface probably meant they were trapped inside the submarine.

Professor Gorman, a former submariner with the Royal Australian Navy who also trained with the Royal Navy, said that with oxygen and power the sailors could survive for some time.

But they would be getting low on food and fluids to drink.

"What else is there in that environment?" he said.

"They may well have been exposed to toxic levels of smoke; there could be high levels of carbon monoxide.

"Imagine 100 people living inside a tin can with compressors and all sorts of machinery running producing every toxic waste known to man, woman and child.

"Normally you have quite sophisticated equipment to measure that and remove it but that assumes everything is running properly.

"With prolonged exposure, the problems you face are dehydration, malnutrition and the cumulative effects of long-term exposure to carbon dioxide, raised levels of carbon monoxide, smoke, cyanide, hydrogen cyanide ... Have the batteries failed? If they've failed, the thing will be full of chlorine. Have the sewage farms failed? In that case, it will be full of hydrogen sulphide."

Professor Gorman said that at 150m, the submarine was at the range of maximum tolerance for the crew to escape to the surface.

Professor Gorman has made a simulated escape from a submarine at a depth of 60m.

"You go off like a cork," he said.

The major problems with returning to the surface this way were ruptures to the lungs or ears, decompression illness and other trauma.

His one simulated escape was in controlled conditions, but was not something he would like to repeat.

"The day I did it, we had one fellow with a ruptured stomach, we had people with decompression illness and people with ruptured ears. And these were fulltime escape instructors. They were not just your average submariners."