Salvage of sunken N Korean sub begins

Yonhap news agency said divers were to attach four 20-tonne air bags to the North Korean vessel which sank as it was being towed to a pier at the heavily-guarded naval base here.

Cranes would be used to lift the submarine if the air bags do not work, Yonhap quoted officials as saying. The North Korean submarine, which was captured off South Korea’s east coast when it got caught in the nets of a fishing boat, sank on Tuesday when being towed to the pier at the heavily-guarded Tonghae naval base on South Korea’s east coast.

South Korean troops were preparing to investigate the intruder submarine when it sank near the Tonghae base after being under tow for 20 hours by an armada ofSouth Korean vessels.

The fate of the crew three or four of whom were seen by South Korean fishermen when it surfaced was unknown, but they were feared dead. North Korea admitted Tuesday that a “small submarine” was wrecked while training and it was searching for it and its crew. “A small submarine of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea seems to be wrecked while in a training on the East Sea of Korea off Kosang,” said the Korean Central News Agency .