Russian workers on Thursday began clearing away rubble from the lower deck of the Kursk submarine before the vessel is to be taken to a factory to be dismantled, a military official said.
The clean-up operation entered its final stage, more than 17 months after two on-board explosions sent the nuclear submarine plunging to the bottom of the Barents sea, killing all 118 men on board.
After removing the debris, workers will hermetically seal all openings of the wreck before transferring it to the Nerpa military factory at Snezhnogorsk, near Murmansk.
There it will be dismantled for further investigation, Colonel Vladimir Mulov, the military prosecutor of the Northern Fleet, told the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.
The submarine’s wreck was raised last October and transferred to a dry dock in the town of Rolyakovo, near Murmansk.
Six nuclear missiles that were onboard the Kursk, along with the submarine’s nuclear reactor, will also be sent to the Nerpa factory where they will be discharged.
An explosion in the torpedo bay is thought to have been responsible for the accident on August, 12 1999 but the reasons for the explosion still remain unclear.
