RUSSIA: Russian rescuers hunting a missing helicopter with more than a dozen officials on board enlisted clairvoyants yesterday to help find the aircraft, as the third day of an increasingly desperate search drew a blank.
The Mi-8 helicopter carrying Governor Igor Farkhutdinov and colleagues from Russia's oil-rich Sakhalin region vanished on Wednesday, en route from the Kamchatka peninsula to one of the Kuril islands north of Japan.
Officials say more than 20 people could have been on board the helicopter when it disappeared somewhere over remote seas and wild and sparsely populated terrain of volcanoes, lakes and mountains.
A rescue effort involving planes, helicopters, dozens of boats and hundreds of people has covered thousands of square kilometres.
"Because all available, conventional techniques and hardware have been exhausted, we cannot refuse help from people who have non-conventional abilities," Sakhalin's deputy governor, Mr Ivan Malakhov, said of the six clairvoyants who were now helping the rescue effort.
He said the clairvoyants, who had responded to a televised appeal for help, would be given maps of Kamchatka to help them psychically locate the helicopter.
Mr Malakhov said the Sakhalin administration was offering one million roubles (€30,000) to anyone with information about the helicopter's whereabouts.