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Divers to penetrate into sunken Amurskaya freighter

Helicopters will delivered to the shipwreck area at sea a tonne of diving equipment with which the divers can work at depths of up to 50 metres

 VLADIVOSTOK, November 8 (Itar-Tass) — Scuba divers of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM) have the task to penetrate inside the sunken Amurskaya dry-cargo freighter that lies at a depth of 25 metres in the Sea of  Okhotsk. To this end, two Mi-8 helicopters are planned to transport Mi-8 nine divers on Thursday to the area of the ship’s sinking. The helicopters will delivered to the shipwreck area at sea a tonne of diving equipment with which the divers can work at depths of up to 50 metres. All the divers are dispatched to examine the sunken dry-cargo vessel by the EMERCOM Far Eastern regional search and rescue team.

According to the team’s spokesperson Vladimir Andreyev, the helicopters in the flying weather conditions are to take the divers to the Sea of Okhotsk area near the Shantar Islands during the day on November 8. The divers are to board the Rubin rescue ship that found the sunken Amurskaya freighter.

On Wednesday, divers of the Rubin vessels already descended to the wrecked ship and found no people on the bridge there. However, the divers from the Rubin ship did not penetrate inside the sunken freighter.

The Amurskaya vessel on October 28 left the Kiran sea terminal in the Tuguro-Chumikansky district of the Khabarovsk Territory with a crew of nine members. According to investigators, the ship was carrying 700-750 tonnes of gold-bearing ore, although its maximum capacity was 611 tonnes. Experts believe that the cargo could be displaced because the ship was rolling baldy in the storm conditions, which led to her instant capsizing and sinking. The Amurskaya radio beacon transmitted a distress signal.

Over the past few days, more than 20 thousand square kilometres of the Sea of  Okhotsk in the area of the Shantar Islands have been examined by aircraft and ships, and ground search parties examined more than 160 kilometres of the coast of the Khabarovsk Territory. They so far have found no traces of the Amurskaya vessel’s nine crewmembers.