RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Vanes­sa Kussie, the wife of miss­ing div­er Rishi Nages­sar says pump­ing of a 30-inch di­am­e­ter pipeline is con­tin­u­ing to­day to re­trieve the corpse of her dead hus­band.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Kussie said she re­ceived an up­date from the com­pa­ny on Wednes­day.

"They told me they are pump­ing the pipeline slow­ly so his body will re­main in­tact. I am thank­ful for that," Kussie said.

She added, "They al­so told me they are still tak­ing out oil from the line. They are pump­ing the line but not fast. They're pump­ing cau­tious­ly and I ap­pre­ci­ate every­thing they are do­ing. I am just wait­ing to get clo­sure."

Mean­while, Nages­sar's el­der broth­er, Ra­jesh Be­har­ry, said he was try­ing to cope with the tragedy.

"It is hard for me deal­ing with this. They are still look­ing for the body. I am see­ing about many dif­fer­ent things and it re­al­ly hard," Be­har­ry said.

"They have sent in an RV in­to the pipeline, but they still have not seen any­thing as yet," he added.

Guardian Me­dia sent an email to Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny on Wednes­day ask­ing for an up­date on the re­cov­ery ef­forts but there has been no re­sponse as yet.

Nages­sar and four oth­er divers—Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuff Hen­ry, Christo­pher Boodram and Kaz­im Ali Jr—were con­duct­ing main­te­nance works on a 30-inch di­am­e­ter seabed crude oil pipeline at Berth No 6, Pointe-a-Pierre on Feb­ru­ary 25th, when they were sucked in­to the pipeline.

Two hours lat­er, Boodram was pulled out of the pipeline by an­oth­er div­er.

He had been saved by Kur­ban, a div­er with 30 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, who man­aged to push him along the line so he could get out. Kur­ban died along with the oth­er divers.

Kur­ban's fa­ther Ramjohn Kur­ban had per­ished on 17th Oc­to­ber 1985, when an off­shore plat­form in that same area erupt­ed in flames. De­spite this, Kur­ban be­came a cer­ti­fied com­mer­cial div­er, work­ing in sev­er­al parts of the world and train­ing dozens of oth­er divers. Some of these divers had been will­ing to en­ter the pipeline when the men be­came stuck on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

The rea­son that the divers were pulled in­to a vor­tex cre­at­ed in­side the pipeline is now the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Boodram's rel­a­tives said he re­mains trau­ma­tised and is still ward­ed at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal.

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This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry and Guardian Me­dia will up­date it as in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.