‘Explosion’ dashes hopes for missing submarine’s crew
ARGENTINA: Hopes for the survival of 44 crew members on the missing Argentine submarine ARA San Juan all but vanished yesterday, as the country’s navy said a ‘‘violent event consistent with an explosion’’ had been detected three hours after the vessel disappeared in the South Atlantic.
Eight days into the search, the revelation of the apparent explosion led to cries of anger from relatives waiting at the Mar del Plata naval base.
Some collapsed, while others sobbed uncontrollably or smashed their mobile phones. Ambulances were dispatched to the scene.
Search vessels were combing an area of a 125-kilometre radius close to the submarine’s last known position, after analysis from the United States and Austria revealed a ‘‘hydroacoustic anomaly’’ on the morning that the San Juan lost contact after reporting a fault with its batteries.
Captain Enrique Balbi, a navy spokesman, confirmed that ‘‘a singular event, short, violent, nonnuclear, consistent with an explosion’’ had occurred some 50km north of the site where the submarine disappeared.
Speaking outside the base, Itati Leguizmon, wife of radar operator Germon Oscar Suarez, said she felt ‘‘deceived’’ by navy officials, whom she alleged had ‘‘lied to us’’ and withheld information.
She said she now believed her husband and his crewmates were dead. ‘‘They are not saying that, but it’s a logical supposition. They’ve been down there since [last] Wednesday.’’ Without coming to the surface, the submarine’s oxygen supply would have lasted for seven days.
Balbi defended the navy’s handling of the search. He insisted that the US report had only been ‘‘officially’’ received on Thursday, while the second, from Austria where monitoring by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation also picked up the anomaly - arrived yesterday.
The anomaly was recorded by hydrophones - listening posts scattered around the world’s oceans, capable of detecting underwater noise - and the material had to be collated, analysed and crosschecked, Balbi said.
He acknowledged that the navy had waited two days after the submarine went missing before putting out an international alert, stressing that this was ‘‘according to protocol’’.
But the delay is widely reported to have angered Argentine government ministers, who learned of the disappearance from the media.
Balbi said an explosion inside the submarine could have caused it to implode, which could explain why no debris had been found in the search area.
Family members rounded on authorities over what they say was the decrepit state of the submarine.
Built in 1985, the German-made vessel was fully renovated in 2014, and the Argentine government insisted it was well-maintained.