Tragic Incident: All-Terrain Vehicle Accident Claims Lives of Five Workers in Zabaikalsky Region

Five workers lost their lives in the Zabaikalsky region of Far East Russia when an all-terrain vehicle carrying nine individuals sank into a secluded mountain lake earlier this week, according to emergency officials.

On Monday, a group of nine employees from a geological exploration firm was conducting fieldwork when their tracked all-terrain vehicle is believed to have experienced a brake failure, resulting in it submerging in Lake Amudisa.

Four individuals who survived the incident managed to alert authorities after reaching a nearby populated area on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, emergency teams recovered three bodies, and later, two more were retrieved on Thursday. Authorities indicated that they intended to utilize heavy equipment to extract the vehicle from the lake.

Law enforcement has initiated a criminal investigation into potential safety violations but has not disclosed if anyone has been apprehended in connection with the case.

Among the deceased, three were identified as workers from an unnamed commercial entity, while the other two were reported as security personnel.

An unverified source named the survivors as two geophysicists and two drivers.

Russian news outlets have reported that the fieldwork was commissioned by Hydrostroy GeoTech, a geological and geophysical survey company operating in Siberia and the Far East of Russia.