Seventeen fishermen were missing and feared dead on Monday after a Russian trawler fell during a storm and sank in the icy waters of the Barents Sea. Officials said two people had been rescued by a passing boat, but hopes were quickly dashed that more survivors could be found during a snowstorm over Arctic waters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday expressed “deep condolences” to the families of the victims and offered “words of support” to the survivors.
“I learned of the tragedy with grief,” Putin said in a statement issued by the Kremlin.
At a government meeting speaking earlier in the day, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin commissioned officials to provide the necessary assistance to the relatives of the victims.
“There has been a tragedy in the Barents Sea today,” Mishustin said. “People died,” he added, without providing further details.
Alexander Kokorin / AP
Officials said there was a search and rescue operation, but that bad weather had complicated the task.
“There is an intense snowstorm, the waves reach four meters in height and temperatures are around 20-25 degrees Celsius below zero,” Alexei Barinov, a spokesman for the emergency ministry, told AFP. of the northwestern region of Murmansk.
“We look forward to 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 more than 15 minutes in these conditions,” the source said.
The privately owned ship, named Onega, sank near the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Barents Sea around 6:20 a.m. (3:30 GMT), said Ruslan Nazarov, head of the Murmansk branch of the Ministry of Emergencies.
Ten minutes later, a passing boat rescued two fishermen, Nazarov told reporters.
Officials believe the Russian-flagged ship, which has been operating since 1979, capsized after the ice buildup tilted it.
The disaster occurred when the crew pulled out a net with the catch, said spokesman for the Rosmorrechflot shipping and river transport agency Alexei Kravchenko.
“The ship lost its balance and overturned instantly,” he told AFP.
Three boats and an Il-38 maritime patrol plane were sent to the scene, officials said.
Kravchenko said no bodies had been found so far, although the two survivors had seen a crew member die in front of them.
Maritime accidents are quite common in Russia.
In April 2015, a Russian trawler sank in the Okhotsk Sea off Kamchatka. Of the 132 people aboard the Dalniy Vostok, only 63 were rescued.
In December 2011, a drilling rig overturned and sank off Sakhalin Island during a storm. More than 50 people died or disappeared.