Russian workers pull Mikhail Pichugin ashore on Tuesday. He was adrift in the Sea of Okhotsk for 67 days. AP
| Photo Credit: AP

A Russian man was rescued in the stormy Sea of Okhotsk after surviving for more than two months in a tiny inflatable boat that lost its engine, but his brother and nephew have died, officials said on Tuesday (October 25, 2024).

The prosecutor’s office in the far east of Russia said that the man was rescued by a fishing vessel off the Kamchatka Peninsula.

It did not name the survivor, but Russian news reports identified him as 46-year-old Mikhail Pichugin, who in early August set on a journey to watch whales in the Sea of Okhotsk together with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew. Their bodies were reportedly found in the boat when the Angel fishing vessel rescued Mr. Pichugin.

Media reports said the three men traveled to the Shantar Islands off the northwestern shore of the Sea of Okhotsk in early August. They went missing after setting off on their way back to Sakhalin Island on August 9.

Russian media reported that the trio had a small food ration and about 20 litres of water when their engine failed and they found themselves adrift.

He did not immediately say how he managed to survive in the Sea of Okhotsk, the coldest sea in East Asia and known for its gales, and how his brother and nephew died.

When the crew of the fishing vessel spotted the tiny inflatable boat on their radar, they initially thought it was a buoy or a piece of junk, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said, but they turned on the spotlight to make sure and were shocked to see Mr. Pichugin.

Prosecutors said that they launched an investigation into the incident on charges of violation of safety rules that resulted in deaths.

More than 60 people were battling heavy winds and rains on Sunday searching for a Russian helicopter that went missing the day before with 22 aboard in the far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, the emergencies ministry said.

Seven groups of emergency rescuers, rangers and volunteers were dispatched to try to locate the Mi-8T helicopter that took off from a base near the Vachkazhets volcano, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Kamchatka Peninsula, some 7,100 km (4,400 miles) east of Moscow, has been hit by a cyclone over the weekend, with rain expected to ease slightly only towards the end of Sunday, the ministry and the region’s meteorology services said on Telegram.

“The search has not yielded any results so far,” Russia’s RIA state news agency reported, citing Sergei Lebedev, the emergency minister for the Kamchatka region.

“The road is extremely difficult. It is possible to move by foot only.”

He added that the slopes of the mountain range in the search area are covered with dwarf pine and trees, making it impossible to use equipment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington, United States:

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula early Sunday morning local time, according to the regional earthquake monitoring service.

The local emergencies ministry said tremors were felt along the coast including in the region’s capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

“Operational teams of rescuers and firefighters are inspecting buildings,” the regional branch of Russia’s emergencies ministry in the Kamchatka region said on Telegram.

The earthquake struck at a depth of nearly 50 kilometres (30 miles) just after 7:00 am local time, some 90 kilometres east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the United States Geological Survey reported.

The US National Tsunami Warning Center had initially issued a tsunami threat, but later said the threat had passed. Local authorities never issued a tsunami alert.

Several aftershocks were recorded after the initial quake, but of lower intensity, the Kamchatka branch of Russia’s Unified Geophysical Service reported on its website.

The peninsula lies on a seismically active belt surrounding most of the Pacific Ocean known as the “Ring of Fire”, and is home to more than two dozen active volcanoes.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)