Kursk yields 12 'heroes'

More bodies were recovered on Friday

MOSCOW, Russia -- Investigators have pulled the remains of 12 seamen from the nuclear submarine Kursk and spotted three more bodies for retrieval.

Nine more bodies were removed from the wreck on Friday after three on Thursday, Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said.

Eight of the bodies were recovered from the shattered submarine's 9th compartment and the rest from the 4th compartment, said prosecution spokesman Leonid Troshin.

"The work does not stop even for a minute," he said in comments cited by the Interfax news agency.

Ustinov said: "Exactly how many of our heroes we'll manage to get out of the vessel is still hard to say, but in the ninth compartment there are at least three bodies."

Meanwhile, investigators entered the sixth reactor section of the submarine, Interfax said, quoting naval Commander-in-Chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov.

"Once again we saw that everything was in order in the section. There is no water and background radiation is within permitted limits," Kuroyedov said.

Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, the Northern Fleet commander, told Interfax that the investigators would cut all cables and weld closed all openings in the compartment, where the vessel's nuclear reactors are located.

He said that the same procedures are followed when decommissioned submarines are being prepared for dismantling.

Ustinov is leading the team of investigators examining the mangled wreckage of the Kursk in a dry dock in Roslyakovo, near the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk.

The mangled forward compartment, where the Kursk's torpedoes were located, was left on the bottom of the sea out of concern that it could break off and destabilise the lifting operation.

Most of the submarine's 118 crew are believed to have died in the initial blasts which sunk the Kursk during an exercise in the Barents Sea.

But 23 were known to have survived for some hours in the rear of the craft.

Most of the submarine's hull was raised on October 8 in an $65 million salvage operation carried out by an international team of divers, and a wreath and plaque were laid at the spot where they died.

Forty inspectors began their work on the wreck once radiation levels and storage conditions of the Kursk's missiles had been found to be safe, and the Kursk had been dried out.

Holes bored in the hull had been found to be free from any leakage from the submarine's twin nuclear reactors.

The firing tubes which contained the 22 cruise missiles also posed no threat, according to inspections.

The operation to remove the missiles from the hull was backed by navy spokesman Vladmir Navrotsky. He told the Interfax news agency that the operation had been "planned to the minute with each participant drilled for their task."

"Whatever happens, there is no danger of the rockets going off," he said.

Forensic specialists are expected to recover the remaining bodies.

The cause of the explosions, which caused the Kursk to sink, is still being investigated, but any inquiry could be hampered because the bow which contained the missiles has been left on the seabed.