Black Sea scoured for survivors of collision

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 1

Black Sea scoured for survivors of collision

NZPA-AP Moscow Divers, helicopters, and ships are searching the Black Sea off Novorossiisk for survivors of a collision between a Soviet freighter and a Soviet cruise ship with 1230 people aboard.

The cruise ship Admiral Nakhimov sank nine nautical miles out to sea

about midnight on Sunday (8 a.m. NZST, Monday), about an hour after leaving port at Novorossiisk, said Igor Averin, a Ministry of the Merchant Marine spokesman. The official news agency, Tass, said yesterday that there had been loss of life in the collision and that help wets being given to the injured. The report did not elaborate. Mr Averin said he did not yet know how many people were killed or in-, jured. There were 884 passengers and 346 crew aboard the Nakhimov when she sank. All were Soviet citizens. He said he did not know how many crew members were aboard the Soviet freighter. None of its crew seem to have been injured.

Informed Soviet sources said the 17,053-ton Nakhimov had sailed -out of Novorossiisk in clear weather with all lights blazing for a gala cruise.

But only a few miles out to sea, they said, there was a slight swell and the

liner and the 18,604-ton Soviet bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev rammed each other. Mr Averin said he did not know how quickly the Nakhimov sank, or what danger there was for passengers who had already retired to their cabins. That the ship sank near the coast and that the water was warm had made rescuers hopeful but they were worried that a lot of people might have gone below decks to sleep because the accident happened late in the evening, he said. The informed sources said the Nakhimov, run by the Black Sea Shipping Company, had a history of problems and had been considered unsuitable for Atlantic voyages.

For that reason, she had been restricted to inshore routes on the' Black Sea, they said. The five-year-old, Japanese-built Vasev,

bought only recently by the Soviet Union, was less badly damaged.

A Government commission headed by a Politburo member and First Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Geidar Aliyev, was still investigating the cause of the accident. Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, published in London, says the Nakhimov had berths for 870 passengers. A Soviet citizen who sailed in the ship in 1971 said extra passengers were accommodated on fourth-class deckchairs on the uppermost of her four decks. The Nakhimov, which Lloyd’s says was 175 metres long, was built in Germany in 1925 as a steam-powered vessel and later refitted with diesel engines. Mr Averin said Mr Aliyev was in Novorossiisk

investigating the accident The choice of such a senior official to conduct the Government inquiry indicated that the acci- q dent could be serious. > u