Russia's Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said that investigators, wearing oxygen masks and cloaked in heavy suits protecting them from poisonous gases and possible radiation, crawled into the Kursk for the first time Wednesday night after draining the 20,000-tonne vessel of water.

The salvage team found the rear three sections of the craft devastated with rubble and sharp pieces of twisted metal, making progress through the hull of the vessel dangerous and slow.

But the three bodies were recovered in good condition and quickly delivered to hospital in the navy port of Severomorsk for identification, Ustinov said.

"We thought that everything would be a lot worse," Ustinov told reporters, adding that "there is no doubt that we will recover more bodies."

Top navy commander Vladimir Kuroyedov separately reported that the Kursk's two nuclear reactors remained hermetically sealed and did not leak any radiation following the accident, removing the last shadow of doubt that the craft posed an environmental threat.

"The radiation level is normal" inside the mid-section of the Kursk where the reactors are stored, said Kuroyedov.

Divers had recovered 12 bodies from the Kursk in a special deep-sea operation last year, shortly after the vessel sank following a series of unexplained explosions in August last year, killing all 118 men on board.

Ustinov said the operation "to exhume the bodies of the crew would continue as circumstances allow."

Some 23 sailors scrambled to the back of the craft moments after it sank following powerful explosion's in the Kursk's bow, which is thought to have instantly killed most of the crew and commanders stationed on Russia's most modern nuclear submarine.

A note found on one of the sailors whose body was recovered last year showed that the 23 men were trapped in the back of the craft because the emergency escape hatch was damaged during the accident, and the crew slowly suffocated to death.

That discovery angered many relatives of the lost crewmen because Russian officials -- accused of failing to respond quickly to the disaster -- had insisted that the men died instantly, and could not have been helped.

President Vladimir Putin came under particularly severe attack for failing to break off his Black Sea summer vacation when the tragedy struck, thus neglecting to console a nation at a time of great psychological trauma.

Putin later vowed to raise the Kursk at whatever cost to give the lost crew a proper burial, and discover the cause of the disaster.

However, navy officials say that the true cause may not be known until the bow, which was sliced off from the Kursk and left at the bottom of the sea, is raised some time next year.

The front section of the Kursk stored the craft's torpedoes, which appear to have sparked the initial explosions.

Workers have yet to remove the 22 volatile cruise missiles that are attached to the sides of the craft, or enter the vital sixth section of the craft which stored the two nuclear reactors on board.

Navy officials said that water had entered at least one of the compartments storing the cruise missiles, meaning that its detachment would have to be performed with extra care.

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