2023-06-22 13:56:41
It was impossible to escape from that metallic coffin. There was no oxygen, no hope. The only escape valve for the few Russian sailors who sank to the depths of the Barents Sea, in the heart of the Kursk submarine, was the pen. «We are 23 people. We feel bad. We are weakened by the action of carbon monoxide that occurred during the fire. The pressure in the compartment is increasing. We will not survive more than 24 hours,” wrote one of them. Those lines left testimony of an agony that lasted for eight hours since the ship sank due to a fortuitous explosion during naval exercises. Or so the Kremlin said.
Since then, to talk about the sinking of submarines is to talk about the K-141 ‘Kursk’. And today more than ever, because this accident that occurred at the end of August 2000 evokes the tragedy that is shaking the world these days: the disappearance of the ‘Titan’ in the middle of the Atlantic while traveling towards the wreck of the Titanic.
This Oscar-class submarine was not as big as the mythologized Typhoon or as modern as the Akulas. In return, it was new –it had been built between 1992 and 1994–, fast –30 knots on the surface and two more in immersion– and as hard as a concrete wall, having a hull 8.5 millimeters thick. In turn, it had an enviable armament: 24 missile launchers of different types and four torpedo tubes. The result was a mass of 150 meters in length and a height of six buildings displaced by two nuclear reactors.
At the controls of captain lyachin, among the most experienced in the navy, the Kursk left port on August 10, 2000 to participate in military maneuvers in the Barents Sea along with other submersibles. Her orders were to simulate the attack on a convoy made up of several ships. And the aim of her in the periscope, the ‘Peter the Great’, insignia of the Northern Fleet. On August 12 nothing seemed to be going wrong. In fact, before that morning he had already successfully launched a practice Granit missile. However, everything changed at 11:27 in the morning, when the ship was going to launch the first torpedo against the false enemy squadron. About then, a brutal explosion rocked her forward compartment.
Recreation of the arrival of the ABC rescue teams
the shock wave
“Since the watertight door of the torpedo room was not closed, the shock wave affected the first two compartments, instantly killing everyone present,” San Juan points out in his work. The captain ordered to surface at full speed, but no one answered him. Shortly after, two minutes later, a new, much stronger explosion destroyed the entire bow of the ship.
That of the military maneuvers is the official version of the facts. But, as often happens, there are many others. Among the best known is that of the historian Vitali Dotsenko. He claims that it was an American submarine that sank the Kursk. The also captain of the Russian Navy is in favor of the fact that the ship was hit by an American Mark-48 torpedo. A “warning from the US” so that Russia does not sell its weapons to China.
What is clear is that the electrical system failed and a third of the hull ended up flooded. The situation was gruesome; the submersible had just become a gigantic radioactive bomb that could explode at any moment. The captain had no choice but to turn off the nuclear reactors. And with that, the slim chance he had of saving the ship was gone. There began a nightmare similar to the one that the crew of the ‘Titan’ live today. Little by little, the Kursk sank until it touched the seabed. The only survivors were a handful of men who took refuge in compartment 9 under the orders of officer Dmitri Kolésnikov. They all knew that their rescue was almost impossible and that oxygen was limited.
Torpedo room of an Oscar-class submarine, similar to Kurks ABC
The alarm
The rescue operations took place along the classic lines of secrecy in Russia. At around one in the afternoon, Admiral Popov – who flew his flag on the ‘Peter the Great’ – already had corroborating reports that all but one of the submersibles had carried out his mission. However, he decided to wait no less than twelve hours to raise the alarm. On Monday, August 14, the news became general. However, the country refused to accept international aid until a week later: the USSR did not want the Americans to discover the submersible and get hold of its technological secrets.
In the end, on August 27, British and Norwegian divers opened the bottom hatch of the fallen colossus. Now for nothing, because the ship was flooded. “By then, all the survivors had died. They were able to hold out for about eight hours in which they left letters that have not been published in their entirety: although what was known horrified the entire world, “concludes San Juan. The catastrophe took 118 lives with him and was a real underwater tragedy for Russia. Not only because of the obvious deaths, but also because of her initial refusal to receive support from other fleets.
In addition to the remains of the sailors, the rescue teams found a note in which Kolésnikov narrated the last moments of the 23 crew members who had survived the explosions. They also came across a message for his wife; a note in which he tried to be optimistic despite everything: «It is too dark to write, but I will try with touch. It seems that we have no chance, maybe 10 or 20%. Greetings to all. There is no need to despair.” This letter was a blow to a USSR that had repeated over and over again that the sailors had died instantly. The umpteenth lie of that communist regime. The lack of oxygen caused the crew members to leave this world, at the latest, on August 13.
#hours #agony #suffocation #sailors #Kursk #submarine