13 foot long turbine pump

We were asked to remove a 600 HP vertical motor and the 13 foot long turbine pump that it couples to, from a cooling tower water basin. The motor was removed without incident, but when we lifted the pump out, instead of the expected 13 feet, we only got 5 feet of pump! The pump had actually broken in two! We probed the water, using 8 foot long poles, and could not feel anything. And with caramel colored water in the cooling tower, nothing was visible. The customer had no way to get it out, and even if a new pump [...]