MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Disappearance of Indonesian submarine touches relatives of ARA San Juan victims

KRI Nanggala-402 is one of the Indonesian fleet's five submarines

The Indonesian Navy Wednesday reported the disappearance of the KRI Nanggala-402 submarine somewhere north of the island of Bali with 53 crew members on board and has asked Australia and Singapore for help to locate it.

According to military sources quoted by the Kompas agency, the vessel disappeared while conducting military exercises with torpedoes at a depth of about 700 meters at 3:00 am local time.

In Argentina, relatives of the victims of the Argentine doomed submarine ARA San Juan, sent their solidarity to their Indonesian comrades in disgrace, Lawyer Luis Tagliapietra, father of one of the crew members who perished in the 2017 incident in the Atlantic Ocean, said in a statement.

“We sympathize with the families of the submariners, we pray and hope that they can find all their crew members safe and sound soon,” the statement said. Tagliapietra is also representing relatives of other sailors killed aboard the San Juan in legal actions against the Argentine State.

“We hope that the government and the authorities are up to the events and that they respond with empathy, seriousness and professionalism to those families and that they should not go through what we have suffered,” the statement said.

Built in 1979, the German-made KRI Nanggala-402, weighing 1,400 tonnes, is one of the Indonesian fleet's five submarines.