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Rescue towboat dispatched to search of bulker missing in Sea of Okhotsk

A Beriyev-200 amphibious jet of the EMERCOM and two helicopters are getting ready at an airbase for a mission to the distress area
Photo ITAR-TASS/EMERCOM
Photo ITAR-TASS/EMERCOM

VLADIVOSTOK, October 30 (Itar-Tass) -- Rescue towboat Rubin has left the port of Korsakov on the island of Sakhalin and is heading to the area of the Shantar Islands in the southwest section of the Sea of Okhotsk to join a search for the Amurskaya dry cargo ship missing since the morning hours of Sunday.

The search operation for the ship, the radiobeacon of which sent an alarm signal in the small hours of Sunday, goes on in the waters adjoining the uninhabited islands amid a highly unfavorable weather situation, with the gusts of wind reaching 22 meters per seond, a heavy snowfall, and the air temperature of minus one degree Celsius.

A Beriyev-200 amphibious jet of the Ministry for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense /EMERCOM/ and two helicopters are getting ready at an airbase in the Khabarovsk territory for a mission to the distress area. They will take off as soon as the weather starts improving.

The tanker Novik is the only ship doing an active search at the moment. Two smaller fishery ships, The Kapitan Gams and The Ternei , had to seek shelters because of a severe storm.

No traces of the missing dry cargo ship that was carrying 700 tons of gold-containing ore from the township of Neran in the Khabarovsk territory to the port of Okhotsk have been identified over the past two days.

According to the technical specifications of the Amurskaya, it has the weight-carrying capacity of 611 tons, which means it might be carrying an extra 89 tons of ore.

Its crew consists of 28 seamen, all of them residents of the Khabarobsk and Primorsky /Maritime/ territories.