MAGADAN, February 8 (Itar-Tass) — The families of the Magadan residents who were killed in the Sea of Okhotsk during sinking of the Kolskaya rig on December 18, 2011 will be paid 50,000 roubles each from the municipal budget. A total of nine representatives of Kolyma, five of whom were from Magadan were working on the Kolskaya rig. The lump-sum cash payment to their families totalled 250 thousand roubles, the press service of the city administration reported on Wednesday.
In August 2011 the Kolskaya floating oilrig was moved from Murmansk to Magadan, where the drilling team was finally manned. Nine Kolyma representatives were working as service personnel on the Kolskaya rig. From Magadan the rig was moved to the Kamchatka shelf where it drilled an exploration well until late autumn. Upon completion the work Kolskaya was taken to Sakhalin by the Magadan icebreaker and the Neftegaz-55 transport and towing vessel. The rig was caught in a severe storm 200 kilometres off the Sakhalin coast, capsized and sank. Of the 67 people who were on the rig, 14 were rescued and 17 dead bodies were found and lifted from the water, 36 are reported missing, including nine Kolyma residents.
The rig’s crew also included residents of Bashkortostan, Moscow, Murmansk, Sakhalin and Belgorod regions, Khabarovsk and Krasnoyarsk territories, Bulgaria and Ukraine.