'Hell' inside Kursk sub, offical says

MOSCOW -- Charred and rusting cavities littered with torn metal shards are all that remains of the compartments where commanders and most of the crew the Kursk were at their posts when explosions sank the nuclear submarine, investigators said Saturday.

"What happened inside these compartments was hell," said Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, who presented a seven-minute film shot by investigators inside the portion of the Kursk that was lifted from the Barents Sea floor and hauled into dry dock this month.

"Everything is littered with equipment that was destroyed in the explosion," Ustinov said. "The strong alloys from which these compartments are built were simply ripped apart."

In one part of the film, shown on Russian television, the camera focuses on the spot where the Kursk's periscope once stood -- now a surreally twisted column of metal. "The explosion ... wiped out everything here," Ustinov said.

The chief prosecutor is leading a team investigating the wrecked submarine that sank during exercises on Aug. 12, 2000, killing all 118 crewmen.

He said the Kursk's commanders and most of its crew were killed in the front compartments as two powerful explosions in the bow sent the mighty submarine to the sea bottom.

135 seconds

"In the 135 seconds that passed between the first and the second explosions they did not even have time to put on lifesaving equipment." he said. "But even if this equipment had been put on, there was everything here, an explosion and fire, so nothing could have survived."

The fire spread rapidly after the blasts and raised temperatures inside the Kursk above 14,000 degrees, Ustinov said in Murmansk.

Thirty-two bodies have been removed from the wreckage since it was brought to Roslyakovo, a port near Murmansk, the Russian Navy's press service said late Saturday in a report cited by the Interfax news agency. Ustinov had said earlier in the day that 19 bodies had been found and 17 of them removed. Seven were identified, he said.

Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, the Russian Navy's commander, said that at the request of relatives, the bodies will be transported to their home towns and will be remembered in a farewell ceremony "with full military honors."