Argentina abandons submarine rescue mission

The Argentine navy has abandoned the rescue operation for the 44 crew members on board a submarine that disappeared two weeks ago.

The ARA San Juan went missing on 15 November while on patrol in the South Atlantic.

"Despite the magnitude of the efforts made, it has not been possible to locate the submarine," navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said on Thursday. “More than double the number of days have passed where it would have been possible to rescue the crew.”

Hopes of finding survivors disappeared after a suspected explosion was reported near its last-known location.

Balbi said that the rescue operation was extended to more than double the time to determine the possibilities of rescuing the crew, referring to the estimated period that it is thought the crew could have survived in the submerged vessel.

It was reported that the submarine would only have had about seven days of oxygen supply.

The submarine was returning from a routine mission to Ushauia, near the southernmost tip of South America, when it reported an “electrical breakdown”.

According to naval commander Gabriel Galeazzi, the submarine surfaced and reported what was described as a “short circuit” in the vessel’s batteries. It was later said that the signal was  “consistent with an explosion.”

More than a dozen countries, including the UK, have been involved in the search.