RUSSIAN MAN SHARES SURVIVAL STORY AFTER 66 DAYS AT SEA

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A Russian man who survived 66 days adrift at sea in a small inflatable boat on Wednesday spoke from his hospital bed about his ordeal.

Mikhail Pichugin, 46, was rescued by a fishing boat Monday off the coast of the far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, more than two months after he set off on a boat trip with his brother and 15-year-old nephew, both of whom died aboard.

Taken to a hospital in the city of Magadan, Pichugin was well enough to speak briefly to journalists Wednesday, lying in a hospital bed.

Looking pale with red-rimmed eyes but not emaciated, he gave a few details of how he managed to survive in the Sea of Okhotsk.

“With God’s help, how else? If a boat called Angel saved me,” he said, smiling, referring to the name of the fishing boat whose crew spotted him.

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“I collected rainwater,” he said. He also credited a sleeping bag filled with camel hair for helping him survive.

“It’s wet, it doesn’t get dry but you crawl under it, you wriggle around a bit and you get warm.”

“I had no choice. I have my mother at home, my daughter,” he added on his motivation to live.

Magadan deputy governor Tatiana Savchenko said his condition was “satisfactory”.

She said the administration would pay for Pichugin to fly home and for relatives to visit.

Pichugin comes from Ulan-Ude in Siberia but was working on the far eastern island of Sakhalin as a driver.

He set off from the coast of the Khabarovsk region on August 9 with his visiting brother Sergei, 49, and nephew Ilya, 15, on a crossing to Sakhalin meant to take a few hours.

When they failed to arrive, Russian rescuers surveyed the area by helicopter and plane, suspecting the boat had drifted towards Kamchatka, but found nothing and the search was eventually called off.

The boat was found around 1,000 kilometres (670 miles) from its starting point.

Pichugin may have survived because of his portly 100-kilogramme (220 pounds) stature, according to his wife. Russian television reported he weighed only 50kg when found on Monday.

His wife Yekaterina told RIA Novosti news agency: “It’s a kind of miracle”. She said the men had taken enough food and water to last only two weeks.

Transport investigators have launched a probe into possible breaches of safety rules, raising the prospect that Pichugin could face a criminal charge and risk a jail term of up to seven years.

Russian television reported the men should have taken a satellite phone, the only means of communication in the Sea of Okhotsk.