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Two ships engage in search for missing bulker in Sea of Okhotsk

The crew of the Amurskaya consisted of nine people

VLADIVOSTOK, November 7 (Itar-Tass) — A search for the bulker Amurskaya, which disappeared in the Sea of Okhots in the area of Shantar Islands, is currently conducted by the rescue boat Rubin and a tugboat of the Sakhalinneft Company.

The coast of the Khabarovsk Territory is being surveyed in Tuguro-Chumikan District by District police personnel. They are seeking to find some traces of the dispappeared bulker, the press service of the Far Eastern regional center of the Russian Ministry for Emergencies reported.

Weather in the area of Shantar Islands is auspicious for the search on Wednesday: wind velocisty is 5-10 metres per second, sea waves are 0.5-1 metre high; there is no precipitation; air temperature on Wednesdy afternoon is from two degrees below zero (Celsius) to three degrees above zero.

Viktor Shamin, deputy general director of the Sakhalin basin emergency rescue department, the fleet of which includes the Rubin, sain the rescue boat is currently in the area where an unidentified underwater object, the dimensions of which coincide with those of the bulker Amurskaya, had been found on November 4 at a depth of 25 metres. There are three scuba divers on board the Rubin. They are preparing for and operation to survey the object.

The bulker Amurskaya set out from the port point of Kiran, Tuguro-Chumikan District, Khabarovsk Territory, on Oct 28. According to investigators, the bulker was carrying 700-750 tonnes of gold-bearing ore, alhough the ultimate permissible load was 611 tonnes. Experts believe that the load got displaced in heavy pitching and rolling in storm weather. Such load shifting resulted in an instant capsizing of the bulker.

An emergency radio buoy transmitted a distress signal. The tanker Novik was sent to the points from which the signal was emitted but did not find the bulker there. The crew of the Amurskaya consisted of nine people. Their fate is unknown.

The missing bulker, which was built in 1973, is registered at the port of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.