A NORTH-East engineer, who supervised the raising of Russian submarine the Kursk, was "over the moon" last night at the operation's success.

A team of 30 divers, led by Malcolm Dailey, of Norton, Stockton, finally saw the Kursk rise clear of the seabed yesterday after working on the project since July.

The submarine exploded in the Barents Sea last August, killing all 118 Russians on board and sinking to a depth of almost 360ft.

Yesterday's success followed last week's postponement of the operation due to bad weather, and the completion of a painstaking task to attach 26 cables to the vessel's hull.

Aberdeen firm DSND Subsea supplied the diving team as part of the Dutch-based salvage consortium.

Last night, Mr Dailey's wife Maureen, of Rook Lane, said her husband was delighted to have completed the project. "He rang me when he started to lift it and said it had started to move and that they were all over the moon," she said.

The British divers were helped by six Russians as they worked to recover the wreck. Mrs Dailey said they faced several obstacles, including language barriers.

"There were a lot of things going against them, such as the weather and language barriers," she said.

"Malcolm had never done anything like it before and felt it was a big responsibility."

The Kursk is to be towed to a dry dock in Roslyakovo, near the Russian port of Murmansk, where it is expected to arrive by midweek.