Senior Russian ministers have led tributes to the crew of the nuclear submarine Kursk, at a memorial service attended by thousands of people.

The 118 men - described at the service as the best crew in the Russian fleet - died after two explosions ripped through the Kursk in August, sending it to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov promised to find out the cause of the explosions, and told the crew's relatives that they would be the first to know. The first four bodies recovered from the Kursk were flown to the service - among them that of the young lieutenant whose final letter to his family proved that some men had survived the initial catastrophe. The service, in the northern port of Severomorsk, came hours after several more bodies were recovered from the wreck, which is lying in 108 metres (335ft) of water. Divers are reported to have worked throughout Saturday night in compartments eight and nine of the submarine in an effort to find more of the victims. It was from the ninth compartment that four bodies were recovered earlier in the week