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Torpedo explosion caused Kursk disaster-deputy PM
October 29, 2001
By Natalia Andreassen

MURMANSK, Russia (Reuters) - The Russian official heading the government probe into the Kursk disaster said Monday it was caused by one of the submarine's torpedoes exploding.

But Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, speaking as bodies continued to be retrieved from the wreck, left open the possibility that the nuclear-powered submarine had also collided with an unspecified object.

The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000 after two explosions on board. All 118 servicemen on board died.

"The basic cause of the destruction was the initial explosion of one of the torpedoes," Klebanov said on NTV television. "We cannot say today what caused that explosion because it could have been a collision.

"The collision could have caused an abnormal situation with the torpedo ... perhaps there was an abnormal situation in the torpedo itself. There was perhaps a collision with a mine in the area where the torpedoes were located," he said.

The main hulk of the mammoth vessel was raised from the icy depths in a complex operation earlier this month and towed into the Arctic port of Roslyakovo where investigators continued to recover bodies Monday.

Klebanov said that it was still not known what caused the torpedo to explode but "we are getting closer to saying why this happened."

Working around the clock in shifts, investigators scouring the dank and mangled hulk in Roslyakovo found five bodies overnight to add to 40 already discovered since the sub was brought ashore.

Workers also unloaded five of the 22 cruise missiles which were on board the doomed vessel and appear to have survived intact.

PEOPLE 'HELLISHLY TIRED'

"People are hellishly tired, but nothing can make them leave the wreck," said Leonid Troshin, spokesman for the prosecutor general.

Troshin said 25 of the sailors found since then had been identified, and seven bodies had been flown out to relatives.

Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov, who is leading the investigation into the Kursk's sinking, Saturday described the "hell" on board the boat caused by a fierce blaze that followed the explosions.

It would have been quenched by the icy water that flooded the Kursk within seven to eight hours, but any attempt to rescue crew members who fled to the rear of the boat would have been futile, he said.

Ustinov said the blaze had spared only the Kursk's twin nuclear reactors and the cruise missiles.

President Vladimir Putin, who was fiercely criticized for his hands-off stance during a failed effort to rescue the crew, promised angry relatives after the disaster that he would lift the submarine and hand over the bodies for proper burial.

Investigators say a definitive answer about the cause of the blast may only become possible when the bow section is raised.

It was sawn off and left on the seabed and is due to be raised next year.

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