Indonesia ended salvage efforts on Wednesday to retrieve a disaster-stricken submarine that cost 53 lives and prompted questions over the maintenance of military equipment in the world's fourth most populous nation.
The 44-year-old submarine lost contact with the Indonesian navy on April 21 while preparing for a torpedo drill in the Bali Sea, triggering a desperate international search and rescue effort to find it before oxygen supplies ran out.
Navy spokesman Julius Widjojono said there were no plans to continue the retrieval effort after co-operation with China ended. Before it sank, the submarine's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Heri Oktavian, had complained to a friend, journalist and military analyst Edna Caroline Pattisina, about the delay of an overhaul scheduled in 2020, she told Reuters.Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Indonesian submariner told Reuters the overhaul by state-owned ship builder PT PAL had been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
"When that submarine fell, that was not an ordinary event, we can say it was an emergency situation," he added. "We needed a quick reaction to solve it."
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