A Russian man was found alive in a catamaran two months after it went missing off the Russian Pacific region of Khabarovsk and drifted about 1,000 kilometers across the Sea of Okhotsk.
Mikhail Pichugin, 49, along with his brother and teenage nephew set sail on August 9 on a whale-watching excursion around the Shantar Islands but lost contact soon afterward.
The regional emergency office said in a statement on October 15 that Pichugin -- who had lost 50 kilograms during the ordeal -- was the sole survivor when fishermen found the vessel a day earlier.
According to a report by Russia's Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor’s Office, Pichugin is under investigation as authorities try to determine what happened and whether there were violations of water-transport safety rules resulting in multiple deaths.
To read the original story by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, click here.
