Two more ships head to the capsized drilling rig site
Two vessels, the Yuri Tarapupov and the salvage ship Atlas are en route to the site where the Kolskaya jack up drilling rig capsized on Saturday, the Emergencies Ministry said.
The vessels are expected to arrive at the site today or Tuesday early morning. There have been three ships at the site, the icebreaker Magadan, the Smit Sakhalin and the tanker Georgiy Froyer, which are searching for missing people from the platform. The tug Neftegaz-55 with seven recued men on board has left the search site and is bound for the port of Korsakov based in Sakhalin region.
Today the Far East Rescue Center of Russia’s Emercom’s aircraft AN-74 will start reconnaissance of the sea area, with two more aircrafts to join the sea-air operation, the EMERCOM’s Mi-8 and several Mi-8 of Aviashelf Co. and the Pacific Fleet.
Currently, the rescue is being coordinated by the Marine Rescue Coordination sub-center of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Russian Transport Ministry. Overall, there are 164 people and 13 vessels and aircrafts engaged in the search and rescue operation.
The Kolskaya jack up drilling rig (build year 1985) with 67 workers on board capsized and sank in the Okhotsk Sea. As of now, 14 people have been saved, others are reported missing.