Hopes Fade for Russian Sub Crew’s Survival

MOSCOW —  Hopes grew dimmer and efforts to rescue 118 sailors trapped aboard a sunken Russian nuclear submarine grew more desperate Thursday amid fears that its supply of oxygen had decreased to critical levels.

“The situation is near-catastrophic,” Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov told the nation grimly as he presided over a Cabinet meeting. “As before, we still have hope. I think we must continue to believe that there is still a chance to save the people.”

Earlier this week, naval officials estimated that oxygen aboard the Kursk, which sank Saturday in Arctic waters, would last only until late Thursday or today. In recent days, Russian officials have continually extended that estimate, some even saying oxygen supplies could be stretched for perhaps two more weeks.

But Russian and Western experts agreed that there was absolutely no way to know.

“No one knows what the situation there is--how many people are alive, what their condition is, what state all the equipment is in, what the morale is, etc.,” said Rear Adm. Valery I. Aleksin, a military analyst with the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta. “There are a great many other factors that could influence the situation on the Kursk and determine how long the crew will stay alive. Today it is only a matter of time; all calculations are useless.”

Igor Kudrik, a Russian naval expert working for the Norwegian-based nonprofit environmental Bellona Foundation, agreed.

“I think they’re just trying to calm the public down,” he said. “I’m sure those extensions have no grounds.”

Lack of Activity Is an Ominous Sign

There were no signs of life from the submarine for a second day. There has been no direct communication with the vessel since it went silent during naval exercises and sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Tapping sounds were heard from the craft Monday and Tuesday, according to Russian officials, but there is no way of knowing how many--if any--sailors are alive.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst with the Sevodnya newspaper, said he considers the apparent lack of activity on the submarine a bad sign because Russian seamen are instructed in such disasters to save themselves, not wait for rescue.

“The only explanation for the fact that the crew still has not left the submarine is that all of them are dead now,” he said. “There is unlikely to be any other explanation.”

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley told reporters Thursday that U.S. analysts have seen no direct evidence since the accident to suggest that anyone remains alive on the Kursk. Three U.S. ships reportedly are in the area.

“We, the United States, heard no form of communication,” he said, when asked whether U.S. sensors had picked up the initial tapping noises reported by Russian officials.

However, Russian navy officials insisted that they remain optimistic about the chance of finding survivors. Four Russian rescue craft--two diving bells and two submersibles--continued to work around the clock, attempting to dock with the crippled sub.

Weather conditions, which impeded earlier rescue dives, improved somewhat Thursday. But the submarine’s sharp angle of repose on the seabed--about 60 degrees--continued to frustrate docking attempts. The two Russian submersibles can dock only with craft listing at 45 degrees or less.

After two days of refusals, Russia relented Wednesday and agreed to permit Western rescue teams to take part. A British submersible immediately was flown to Trondheim, Norway, and loaded onto a Norwegian ship that set sail early Thursday for the rescue site, 900 miles away in the Barents Sea. It was expected to arrive no earlier than Saturday and perhaps as late as Sunday.

The British craft is operated by Global Crossing Ltd., a Bermudan-based telecommunications firm whose executive offices are in Beverly Hills. The vessel is under contract with the British government for rescue work, according to a Global Crossing spokeswoman.

A Norwegian team of special deep-sea divers also headed for the site of the disaster aboard a separate ship and was expected to arrive Sunday.

In Russia, public outrage over the accident and authorities’ hesitant response grew Thursday.

“Generals and admirals--who are by definition supposed to be the bravest of the brave, since they command the defenders of the motherland--turn out to be more fearful than anyone else,” wrote the daily Izvestia. “They are afraid to speak the truth about the fate of their subordinates at the bottom of the sea. They are afraid to lose their jobs. They are afraid to immediately ask the West for help for fear of revealing military secrets to a potential adversary that are no longer secret anyway, and for fear of revealing their own impotence.”

Public sympathy also grew for the submariners’ relatives, many of whom were flocking to the northern ports of Severomorsk, about 85 miles south of the sunken vessel, and Murmansk to await word on the fate of their loved ones.

Sailors’ Families Head for Murmansk

A disproportionate number of the younger sailors on board were from the submarine’s namesake city, Kursk, and a special train car carrying their families left Thursday for Murmansk. Russians from around the country were wiring donations to help defray the costs.

Russian officials did not reveal the accident until Monday, the same day the docking attempts by rescuers began.

Felgenhauer said the main reason for the delay was that the accident put the “entire military command of the Russian navy into a state of shock.”

“The Kursk was reputed to be an ‘unsinkable’ submarine,” he explained. “Its design was believed to allow it to stay afloat even after a direct torpedo hit, and its two hulls were expected to sustain underwater nuclear explosions. So the fact that one of the best vessels in the Russian navy could sink like a stone has really shocked Russian admirals.”

Some Russian officials, including Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev and Deputy Prime Minister Ilya I. Klebanov, continued to insist that the submarine was damaged in a collision, perhaps with an icebreaker or other large vessel near the surface.

In a late-night news conference, Klebanov said it appeared that most of the crew members were in the sub’s “accident zone” at the time of impact but appeared to have had adequate time to seal off the affected chambers and flee to other sections of the vessel.

However, Klebanov--who chairs the commission investigating the accident and overseeing the rescue operation--acknowledged that the panel has no information that there were other ships in the area apart from those involved in the Russian naval exercises.

Outside naval experts, both Russian and Western, prefer the theory that a large explosion in the bow of the craft, probably in the torpedo bay, breached the hull, flooded at least the first two compartments and knocked out backup power systems. The crew probably had light for at least a couple of days, because lighting fixtures on board have individual reserve batteries. But those probably gave out several days ago.

Russian officials got their first good look at the damaged sub Thursday, viewing videotape shot by a remote-controlled surveillance craft. It showed debris strewn along the length of the craft from the nose to the midsection.

Kudrik, of the Bellona Foundation, said the footage is consistent with the theory that one of the sub’s high-pressure air tanks--used to force out ballast water--exploded on impact with the sea floor. That also might explain a second explosion recorded by U.S. surveillance craft.

Craft Has Several Sources of Oxygen

Many variables affect how fast the oxygen supply would be depleted, including the number of survivors, their position in the ship, the number of flooded compartments and the state of backup supplies.

During normal operation, the submarine processes seawater to extract oxygen for the crew. In case the vessel loses power, it also is supposed to carry a two- or three-week supply of oxygen-generating bricks. The bricks--about the size of a half-sheet of letter paper and about 4 inches thick--are placed in a nonelectrical device and react chemically to generate oxygen and deplete the air of carbon dioxide.

However, it was unclear how many of these bricks may have been on board the craft at the time of the accident. Since the submarine was close to port and on a three-day exercise, it is possible--especially considering the Russian navy’s cash problems--that it put out to sea without full supplies.

In addition, the sub is supposed to carry a full complement of oxygen-supplying masks to be worn while fighting on-board fires, and each would provide a sailor with 24 hours’ worth of oxygen. However, the masks have a spotty reliability record.

Moreover, there is a distant chance that the crew might have found a way to tap into the submarine’s high-pressure air tanks that, while designed to expel ballast, conceivably could provide oxygen. However, that scenario is highly problematic: Air in the sub probably would already be over-pressurized because of the flooded compartments, and tapping the tanks would considerably increase the pressure.

“The worst-case scenario is that they will run out of oxygen Thursday,” Kudrik said. “But there are really too many variables to take into consideration.”

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Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Elizabeth Douglass in Los Angeles contributed to this report.