After 67 days adrift, a Russian man was rescued but his brother and nephew are dead
A Russian man has been rescued in the Sea of Okhotsk after surviving for two months in an inflatable boat that lost its engine, but his brother and nephew have died
MOSCOW (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 Tuesday.
The prosecutor's office in the far east of Russia said that the man was rescued Monday by a fishing vessel off the Kamchatka Peninsula.
It didn't 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 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 for Sakhalin Island from Cape Perovsky in the Khabarovsk region on Aug. 9. A rescue effort was launched but failed to locate them.