'Explosion' dashes last hopes for missing Argentine sub with 44 aboard 
View of the US Navy deep diving rescue vehicle, the Pressurized Rescue Module (PRM), mobilized to support the Argentine government's search and rescue efforts for the missing Argentine submarine
View
of the US Navy deep diving rescue vehicle, the Pressurized Rescue
Module (PRM), mobilized to support the Argentine government's search and
rescue efforts for the missing Argentine submarine (AFP Photo/PABLO
VILLAGRA)
Mar
del Plata (Argentina) (AFP) - Argentina's navy confirmed Thursday that
an unusual noise heard in the Atlantic near the last known position of a
missing submarine appeared to be an explosion, dashing the last hopes
of finding the vessel's 44 crew members alive.
Relatives
of the missing sailors reacted with grief and anger to the news after
holding out hope since the sub was reported overdue at its Mar del Plata
base on November 17, two days after the explosion.
"An
anomalous, singular, short, violent and non-nuclear event consistent
with an explosion," occurred shortly after the submarine's last
communication, navy spokesman Captain Enrique Balbi told a news
conference in Buenos Aires.
After
days of false hopes, some of the relatives said the navy had withheld
information about the sub and lied to them over the past week.
"I feel cheated," said Itati Leguizamon, whose husband German Suarez was a sonar operator on the ARA San Juan.
"They
did not tell us they died. But they tell us they are three thousand
meters (9,800 feet) deep," added Leguizamon as other family members
shouted angrily around her.
"They lied to us," said Leguizamon, a lawyer.
A
sobbing Jessica Gopar, whose husband was an electrician aboard the San
Juan, said "they just told us that the submarine exploded."
She spoke as she came out from the sub's base.
"He
was the love of my life, engaged seven years before we got married,"
Gopar said of her husband, Fernando Santilli. "And how can I tell my son
that he no longer has a father?"
Underwater
sounds detected in the first days of the search by two Argentine search
ships were determined to originate from a sea creature, not the vessel.
Satellite signals were also determined to be false alarms.
The
San Juan, a 34-year-old German-built diesel-electric submarine, had
reported a battery problem on November 15 and said it was diverting to
Mar del Plata, but did not send a distress signal, according to the
navy.
Balbi admitted on Wednesday that the situation for the sub and its crew appeared to be worsening.
However,
he refused to speculate at that point on the origin of what he
initially described as a "hydro-acoustic anomaly" detected in the ocean
almost three hours after the sub's communication and 30 miles (50
kilometers) north of its last known position.
Balbi
explained that information about the unusual noise only became
available Wednesday after being relayed by the United States and "after
all the information from all agencies reporting such hydro-acoustic
events was reviewed."
Explaining
the lack of debris on the surface, Balbi said "nothing will end up
floating to the surface" because a submarine "implodes".
Gustavo
Mauvecin, director of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at Mar del
Plata, said hydrogen "is always an issue with submarines with electric
engines".
The
San Juan "has 500 tons of lead-acid batteries, which release hydrogen
if there is an overcharge in the battery. Hydrogen in contact with
oxygen is explosive".
- An explosion 'so violent' -
"In my opinion, after an explosion like that, it's difficult for there to be survivors," a former submarine commander told AFP.
The
newspaper La Nacion said one hypothesis is that there was a short
circuit in the batteries. It said this would explain the sub's failure
to communicate and the fact that it did not have time to send off a
distress signal.
The commander said a problem with batteries, as the sub had reported, could in fact cause a blast.
"A
severe problem with batteries might generate hydrogen. Hydrogen above a
certain percentage is explosive," said the commander who requested
anonymity.
Horacio
Tobias, former chief of diving for the San Juan, said it "was so
violent that they would not have had time to realize what happened".
The
San Juan would have had enough oxygen for its crew to survive
underwater in the South Atlantic for seven days since its last contact,
according to officials. That time had elapsed by 0730 GMT Wednesday.
Argentina
is leading an air-and-sea search to try to still find the sub. It is
getting help from several countries now including Brazil, Britain,
Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Peru, Russia, the United States and
Uruguay.
Russia
was the latest navy to volunteer help, sending an oceanographic
research ship as the operation shifted from rescue to recovery.
The
Russian defense ministry said the Yantar was steaming to the area from
the western coast of Africa on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.
The
weeklong search has focused on the sub's last known position, around
200 miles off the Argentine coast, but has been hampered by bad weather.
Putin
offered "words of support over the situation with the San Juan
submarine" in a phone call to Argentine President Mauricio Macri late
Wednesday, the Kremlin said.
Russia
said the Yantar "is equipped with two deep water submersibles which
allow exploratory searches at a depth of up to 6,000 meters."
US President Donald Trump offered his support, tweeting: "May God be with them and the people of Argentina!"
No comments:
Post a Comment