MAR DEL PLATA (Argentina): Argentina’s navy confirmed on Thursday that an unusual noise heard in the ocean near the last known position of an Argentine navy submarine appeared to be an explosion, dashing the last hopes of finding the vessel and its 44 crewmembers.

Concern for the missing submarine and its crew has gripped Argentina since it was reported overdue at its Mar del Plata base on Nov 17, two days after the explosion.

“An anomalous, singular, short, violent and non-nuclear event consistent with an explosion,” occurred shortly after the submarine’s last communication, navy spokesman Captain Enrique Baldi told a news conference in Buenos Aires.

After days of false hopes, families of the crewmembers keeping vigil at the base reacted angrily to the news, saying the navy had lied to them over the past week.

“I feel cheated,” said Itati Leguizamon, whose husband was on the San Juan.

“They are perverse. They are miserable,” she said.

“They did not tell us they died. But they tell us they are three thousand meters (9,800 feet) deep,” added Leguizamon as other family members shouted angrily around her. “People are becoming very aggressive. They lied to us.”

Underwater sounds detected in the first days of the search by two Argentine search ships were determined to originate from a sea creature, not the vessel.

Satellite signals were also determined to be false alarms.

Russia was the latest navy to volunteer to a multinational sea search, sending an oceanographic research ship as the operation shifted focus from rescue to recovery.

The Russian defence ministry said the Yantar was steaming to the area from the western coast of Africa on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.

The weeklong search has focused on the sub’s last known position, around 320 kilometres off the Argentine coast, but has been hampered by bad weather.

The San Juan, a 34-year-old German-built diesel-electric submarine, had reported a battery problem on Nov 15 and said it was diverting to its home base at Mar del Plata, but did not send a distress signal, according to the navy.

Balbi had admitted on Wednesday that the situation for the sub and its crew appeared to be worsening.

However, he refused to speculate at that point on the origin of what he initially described as a “hydro-acoustic anomaly,” detected in the ocean almost three hours after the sub’s communication and 30 miles north of its last known position.

Balbi explained that information about the unusual noise only became available Wednesday after being relayed by the United States, and “after all the information from all agencies reporting such hydroacoustic events was reviewed.”

A former submarine commander said a problem with batteries, as the sub had reported, could cause an explosion.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2017