Official: Divers retrieved ship's log from Kursk

MOSCOW - In addition to notes found on sailors' bodies, Russian divers retrieved a ship's log and more written material from the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk, a top official said Thursday.

''We recovered what we could - certain notes and the log book from the fourth compartment of the Kursk,'' the Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov as saying.

The log and written material were being studied, he said. He did not say when they were written, but it is thought that everybody in the fourth compartment died within minutes of the explosions.

Klebanov's spokeswoman Oksana Onishchenko said the divers found only ''unreadable'' fragments of the log. ''There was nothing related to the accident,'' Onishchenko said.

The log marks the latest grim find that divers pulled through holes cut in the hull of nuclear shipwreck during a precarious 18-day operation on the bottom of the Barents Sea.

They retrieved 12 bodies and two notes written by sailors as they suffocated to death in a rear compartment of the submarine. The notes told of poison gas from fires and pressure mounting in the compartment. All 118 men aboard the Kursk died after it suffered explosions and plunged to the sea floor Aug. 12.

The log book was found in a forward area more severely damaged by the blasts. It was unclear whether the log was for the whole ship or just the fourth compartment. Ship's logs usually contain notes on routine activity on board.

Klebanov did not say when it was found. Divers worked in the fourth compartment Sunday and Monday, before the operation was called off Tuesday because of rough weather and danger to the divers in going any further inside the ship.

Divers had entered the fourth compartment through a hole cut in the top of the sub and were unable to move in their bulky pressure suits more than six feet down one passage on the upper deck, officials have said.

The passage was cluttered with debris and rubble from two explosions that tore through the forward compartments of the Kursk, and threatened to tear the suits.

The fourth compartment held sleeping quarters, a kitchen and meeting rooms.

Russian officials have said the divers' main objective was to retrieve corpses from the wreck, to return to their families for burial. But Klebanov said divers also used their time to find clues about the accident.

Klebanov said Wednesday that dents divers observed on the Kursk's hull may be evidence of a collision with a foreign vessel, a theory Russian officials have focused on. Independent experts have said an explosion in the torpedo compartment was a likely cause of the accident.