Seventeen fishermen were missing on Monday and feared for death after a Russian trawler capsized in a storm and sank in the icy waters of the Barents Sea. Officials said two people had been rescued by a passing ship, but hopes quickly faded that more survivors could be found during a snowstorm over Arctic waters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday extended his “deep condolences” to the families of the victims and offered “statements of support” to the survivors.
“It was with grief that I learned of the tragedy,” Putin said in a statement from the Kremlin.
At a government meeting earlier in the day, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin instructed officials to provide the victims’ relatives with necessary assistance.
“There was a tragedy in the Barents Sea today,” Mishustin said. “People died,” he added, without providing further details.
Alexander Kokorin / AP
Officials said a search and rescue operation was underway but bad weather conditions had made the task more difficult.
“There is a heavy snowstorm, the waves are up to four meters high and the temperatures are around 20-25 degrees Celsius below zero,” Alexei Barinov, spokesman for the emergency situation ministry in the northwestern region of Murmansk, told AFP.
“We hope for a New Year’s miracle,” he added.
However, a source familiar with the details of the search efforts told AFP that there was little hope of finding survivors.
“A person cannot last longer than 15 minutes in these circumstances,” the source said.
The private boat, named Onega, sank near the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Barents Sea at around 6:20 a.m. (0330 GMT), said Ruslan Nazarov, head of the Murmansk department of the emergency ministry.
Ten minutes later, a passing ship rescued two fishermen, Nazarov told reporters.
Officials believe the Russian-flagged ship, in use since 1979, capsized after ice build-up caused it to overturn.
The disaster struck when the crew pulled a net with the catch, said Rosmorrechflot maritime and river transport agency spokesman Alexei Kravchenko.
“The ship lost its balance and capsized immediately,” he told AFP.
Three ships and an Il-38 maritime patrol plane were sent to the scene, officials said.
Kravchenko said no body had been found so far, although the two survivors had watched a crew member die before their very eyes.
Maritime accidents are quite common in Russia.
In April 2015, a Russian trawler sank in the Okhotsk Sea off Kamchatka. Of the 132 people on board the Dalniy Vostok, only 63 were rescued.
In December 2011, a drilling platform capsized and sank off Sakhalin Island during a storm. More than 50 people were killed or missing.