Specialists have started raising the sunken passenger ship Bulgaria from the bottom of the Volga River in Russia’s central republic of Tatarstan. It went down in minutes almost two weeks ago, drowning 114 people.
On Friday morning the engineers successfully detached first the stern of the ship and then its bow from the sticky mud of the river bed.
Now two floating cranes will partially lift it from the water. This will allow the water to be pumped out, after which the vessel will be taken to a floating dock.
The plan is weather-dependent and difficult, and earlier work was dogged by technical problems.
The river cruiser Bulgaria with 208 people on board sank on July 10. Only 79 people survived, while 15 bodies are still missing after the tragedy.