Castaway rescued after ten weeks stranded at sea but relatives 'found dead in boat'
by Henry Moore · LBCBy Henry Moore
A Russian man has been rescued after surviving at sea for more than two months in a tiny inflatable boat, but his brother and nephew were found dead on the vessel.
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The man was found in the Sea of Okhotsk, the coldest sea in east Asia, the local prosecutor's office in the far east of Russia said on Tuesday.
The man was not named in the report but local media has identified him as 46-year-old Mikhail Pichugin, who had set out in early August to watch whales in the Sea of Okhotsk together with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew.
The two other men were found dead on the small boat.
Media reports said the three men had travelled to the Shantar Islands, off the north-western shore of the Sea of Okhotsk.
They went missing after setting off to return to Sakhalin Island on August 9. A rescue effort was launched but failed to locate them.
According to local reports, the three only had a small pack of food and around 5 gallons of water when they found themselves adrift.
Mr Pichugin only weighed around 110lb (50kg) when he was found, having lost half of his body weight, news reports claimed.
Mr Pichugin has yet to provide details on how he survived or 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 Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said, but they turned on the spotlight to make sure and were shocked to see Mr 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 to safety.
"I have no strength left," he said as he was rescued.
Prosecutors said they have launched an investigation into the incident on charges of violation of safety rules that resulted in deaths.