May 28 :A British nuclear-powered submarine has been damaged after it collided with rocks beneath the surface of the Red Sea, but no crew members were injured in the incident.
No crew members were hurt and the submarine remains watertight.There were 112 crew members on board, a Defence Ministry spokesman said.The submarine HMS Superb’s sonar equipment was damaged when it hit rocks on Monday and it was forced to surface, he said.
The spokesman said that the submarine’s nuclear reactor was "completely unaffected", but a full investigation was under way to determine the cause of the collision.
The submarine had passed through the Suez Canal and was in the northern Red Sea, 80 miles south of Suez itself, when it hit an underwater rock pinnacle.
There was also "no environmental impact" from the collision, the spokesman added.
HMS Superb was commissioned in 1976 and was recently deployed to the Indian Ocean to provide support for British troops in Afghanistan.The submarine’s current mission was being reassessed because the sonar damage made underwater operations impossible, the spokesman said.