A Russian man was found alive after drifting for two months in the sea, said prosecutors on Tuesday. Another man and a teenage boy who also accompanied the man on an inflatable boat were found dead.
The trio had set off to the Island of Sakhalin from the far eastern Khabarovsk region on August 9, as per the transport prosecutors, reported AFP.
But after a time, communication with them was lost and the boat's direction remained unknown, they said.
According to prosecutors, the boat was discovered on October 14 around 10 pm as it passed a fishing boat. "Two people died, one remained alive, he is receiving medical help," they said.
Their boat was found in the Sea of Okhotsk, around 1,000 kilometres from the starting point. A video published by the prosecutors showed the bearded survivor in a life jacket shouting at the fishermen: "I don't have much strength" but managing to catch a rope.
RIA Novosti news agency named the survivor Mikhail Pichugin, while his brother Sergei (49) and nephew Ilya (15) died and their bodies were on the boat.
Helicopters and a plane were deployed by the Russian rescuers to search for the men after they disappeared, suspecting the boat was carried by currents towards Kamchatka.
The owner of the fishing boat who found the survivor said he was "in a serious condition, thin, but conscious," RIA Novosti reported.
He was carried off on a stretcher after the boat docked around 0830 GMT in the far eastern city of Magadan.
For Mikhail's wife, Yekaterina, it was "a kind of miracle" and said that the men had taken enough food and water to only last two weeks. She believed her husband's weight could have helped save him, as he weighed around 100 kilograms." He lost 50 kilograms, reported Russian television.
The two brothers were from Ulan-Ude in Siberia but Mikhail was working on Sakhalin as a driver. He had invited his brother and nephew to visit and planned a trip to see whales Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported, citing relatives.