Fishing vessels in the Sea of Okhotsk are still searching for the Amethyst trawler that disappeared there on Feb. 11 with 23 crewmembers on board, a Russian official said Tuesday.
Eighteen fishing vessels, aircraft from the armed forces or emergency services were sent to search in an area of about 200,000 square kilometers off the coast of Kamchatka, said Sergei Khabarov, minister
of Special Programs of Kamchatka.
Only two life rafts and eight buoys from the missing vessel have been found, he said.
With an average water depth of more than 300 meters, no technical equipments in Kamchatka can be applied to find a sunken ship, and a special vessel equipped with sonar systems is needed, he said.
The Kamchatka government has already begun handing out compensation money. Relatives of the Amethyst trawler crew will get 250,000 rubles (8,838 U.S. dollars) each.