RUSSIA: Boats, planes and helicopters fanned out over Russia's remote Pacific coast yesterday, but the massive, military-led search for a helicopter carrying a regional governor and more than a dozen officials yielded nothing for a second day.
Mr Igor Farkhutdinov, governor of the oil-rich Sakhalin region, has been missing along with up to 22 other people since Wednesday, when his helicopter vanished on its way from the Kamchatka peninsula to an island in the Kuril chain north of Japan.
Accounts of the number on board ranged from 16 to 23. But it was confirmed that Mr Farkhutdinov, who has presided over something of an oil and gas boom on the desolate island of Sakhalin, had been travelling with many leading officials in his administration.
