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The search operations for a missing submarine in the north of the island of Bali (Indonesia), with 53 crew members on board, are entering their second day, and it is not yet known what caused the incident or the exact location of it. A patrol team has found a fuel spill near the place where the ship is believed to have been, with which contact was lost on Wednesday when it was preparing to carry out military exercises. The Indonesian military has deployed warships to the area, while neighboring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia have sent submarines and rescue ships to assist in tracking down the KRI Nanggala 402, made in Germany in 1977. The crew would have oxygen until Saturday.
The fuel spill found a few hours after the last contact with the submarine by a helicopter in the area where the device is believed to be could indicate that damage occurred to the ship or it could be a signal sent by the crew. the Indonesian Navy, according to the newspaper The Jakarta Post. KRI Nanggala 402 was scheduled to conduct military exercises with torpedoes when it requested permission to dive at 3:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday (20:00 GMT Tuesday), losing contact with it about an hour and a half later, it told Reuters Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian armed forces, Hadi Tjahjanto.
For his part, Indonesian Navy spokesman Julius Widjojono said Thursday that rescue teams are focusing on the area where the fuel spill has been found, but that the exact location of the submarine has not been determined.
Widjojono told the AFP agency that in the search operations deployed in the area, in which six warships and a helicopter participate, around 400 people work.
Singapore and Malaysia have also sent submarines and rescue ships, while the United States, India, Australia, France and Germany have offered help to the Indonesian government.
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It is believed that the device disappeared about 100 kilometers north of the island of Bali, in a "quite deep" area, Widjojono warned.
The submarine, equipped with a diesel engine, has the capacity to submerge to a depth of between 250 and 500 meters.
"Any greater distance can be fatal, very dangerous," added Widjojono to local television station KompasTV.
The area in which it is considered to be found can reach depths of up to 1,500 meters.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Navy highlighted as a "possibility" that an electrical blackout occurred during the dive, so that "control was lost and emergency procedures could not be activated, the submarine plummeting to a depth of about 600 -700 meters ".
A letter from the Indonesian Army on April 16 invited the media to cover the military exercises planned for this Thursday by KRI Nanggala-401, which included exercises with cannons, rockets and torpedoes in the Strait of Bali, which separates this island. of Java, according to the EFE agency.
The 1,395-ton KRI Nanggala-401, built by Germany in 1977, joined the Indonesian fleet in 1981. The vast Asian archipelago once had a dozen of these devices purchased from the Soviet Union, but now only has five ships. of German origin, including the missing one, and three newer ones bought from South Korea.
Indonesia, which has never suffered a major accident involving a submarine, has been trying for years to modernize its military equipment and defense capabilities. In 2017, the Argentine military submarine ARA San Juan disappeared in the Atlantic with 44 crew members on board; the remains of the apparatus were found a year later, more than 900 meters deep, confirming the implosion of the ship.