Russian man rescued after two months adrift in Sea of Okhotsk

A man was rescued in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East after surviving for more than two months in a small inflatable boat with no engine, officials said Tuesday.

The Russian national was rescued Monday local time by a fishing vessel off the Kamchatka Peninsula, the prosecutor’s office said.

The authorities didn’t name the survivor or the two family members who perished on the same boat.

However, Russian domestic media identified him as 46-year-old Mikhail Pichugin, who in early August set on a journey to watch whales in the Sea of Okhotsk with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew.

Their bodies were reportedly found in the boat when the fishing vessel rescued Pichugin.

Media reports said the three men travelled to the Shantar Islands off the northwestern shore of the Sea of Okhotsk — the body of water separating Russia and Japan — in early August.

They were reported missing after they failed to return to Sakhalin Island on 9 August. A rescue effort could not locate them at the time.

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

Pichugin weighed just about 50 kilograms when he was found, having lost half of his body weight, news reports said.

He didn’t immediately say how he managed to survive in the Sea of Okhotsk, the coldest sea in East Asia 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 domestic press reported, but they turned on the spotlight to make sure and were shocked to see Pichugin.

A video released by the prosecutor’s office showed an emaciated man in a life jacket desperately shouting, “come here,” and the crew working to pull him back to safety.

“I have no strength left,” Pichugin said as he was taken to safety.

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