Posted at 9:32 a.m., Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Sub crash victims' families receive condolence money

Associated Press

TOKYO — The families of 35 Japanese people killed or injured last year when a U.S. Navy submarine collided with their fishing trawler off Hawai'i will receive an additional $1,500 each from a nationwide fund, officials said Tuesday.

Nine men and teen-age boys aboard the Ehime Maru died when their vessel from the Uwajima Fisheries High School was rammed by the nuclear-powered USS Greeneville. Twenty-six others were rescued.

Divers recovered eight bodies in October. The body of Takeshi Mizuguchi, 17, remained missing when the search was called off Nov. 15.

The victims' families have already received $3,000 from the same fund, until now totaling $263,000 and still growing, said Motoyasu Ota, a spokesman from the boat's port city of Uwajima.

Earlier this month, the prefectural (state) government of Ehime sponsored a memorial service for the victims. U.S. officials, including U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker, and Japanese Defense Agency chief Gen Nakatani attended.

In last year's accident, the Greeneville crashed into the Ehime Maru off O'ahu as the nuclear-powered sub demonstrated an emergency surfacing drill for 16 civilian guests.

In a new incident Monday, the USS Greeneville collided with an amphibious transport ship in the Arabian Sea. The collision happened Sunday as the ships were preparing to transfer two sailors, Pentagon officials said Monday. It punctured the fuel tank of the amphibious transport dock ship USS Ogden. There were no injuries.