Russia has asked Norway to help recover the 118 bodies from the sunken Kursk, but the firm managing a Norwegian-British team of divers said a mission would be hazardous and take weeks to prepare.
"Russia has asked us for help to recover the bodies," Mr Karsten Klepsvik of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said yesterday. "We are positive and will see what we can do." But he said any operation, which would be funded by Moscow, would require a new vessel and new divers to take over from a team working on the wreck.
The team opened the hatches of the Kursk yesterday and found it full of water, removing even faint hopes of finding any of the crew alive. The Norwegian group Stolt Offshore, which is managing the 12-member team of divers, said it would take weeks to prepare for any mission to recover bodies, partly because the divers would need to cut a bigger hole into the Kursk.
Mr Julian Thomson of Stolt Offshore said it would be too dangerous for divers to try to squeeze into the existing narrow escape hatch and search chill, dark waters for bodies in the wreck. "We'd need to cut a bigger entrance. The problem is how do you cut into a nuclear submarine?" he said. "Cutting through steel is OK under water except that this is a very dangerous wreck, with nuclear reactors aboard."
Norway reiterated yesterday there was no sign of radioactive leakage from the Kursk's two reactors, which are equipped with an automatic shut-down system. Russia's Northern Fleet now faces a choice between the costly options of salvaging the Kursk or sealing it off to prevent radioactive leaks.
According to Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov the Kursk, which when flooded weighs around 24,000 tonnes, could be lifted with the help of cables attached to platforms or by giant air cushions, and then towed back to base. But the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Ilya Klebanov, admits that the task imposes technical obstacles beyond Russia's resources.
Some international experts insist it would be safer to leave the Kursk on the seabed and warn that any attempt to refloat it could cause it to break up and result in disastrous consequences for the maritime environment. "As we are not sure of the state of the nuclear reactor, raising the submarine might disturb the reactor and may cause more problems than leaving it", said Dr Joanna Kidd of the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
A member of the Russian inquiry team told the daily Segodnia the Kursk would be left on the seabed and that the compartment housing the nuclear reactor would be hermetically sealed.
Moscow has said the Kursk's reactor is surrounded by an extremely solid casing and will represent no danger for hundreds of years. But several military experts have been more pessimistic, saying that even when stopped the reactor could be dangerous if it had not cooled down.