Nuclear engineers buried after blast
Thousands of Russians attended the funerals yesterday of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by an explosion as they tested a new rocket engine, a tragedy that fuelled radiation fears and raised new questions about a secretive weapons programme.
The engineers, who died on Friday, were laid to rest yesterday in Sarov, which hosts Russia’s main nuclear weapons research centre, where they worked. Flags flew at half-staff in the city, located 370km east of Moscow, which has served as a base for Russia’s nuclear weapons program since the late 1940s. The coffins were displayed at Sarov’s main square before being driven to a cemetery.
The Defence Ministry initially reported that the explosion at the navy’s testing range near the village of Nyonoksa in the northwestern Arkhangelsk region killed two people and injured six others. The statecontrolled Rosatom nuclear corporation then said over the weekend that the blast also killed five of its workers and injured three others. It’s not clear what the final toll is.
The company said the victims were on a sea platform testing a rocket engine and were thrown into the sea by explosion.
Rosatom director Alexei Likhachev praised the victims as ‘‘true heroes’’ and ‘‘pride of our country.’’
‘‘Our further work on new weapons that we will certainly complete will be the best tribute to them,’’ Likhachev said during the funeral, according to Rosatom. ‘‘We will fulfill the Motherland’s orders and fully protect its security.’’
Rosatom said the explosion occurred while the engineers were testing a ‘‘nuclear isotope power source’’ for a rocket engine. Local authorities in nearby Severodvinsk, a city of 183,000, reported a brief spike in radiation levels after the explosion, but said it didn’t pose any health hazards.
Still, the statement from Severodvinsk’s administration came just as the Defence Ministry insisted that no radiation had been released, a claim that drew comparisons to Sovietera attempts to cover up catastrophes. Spooked residents rushed to buy iodide, which can help limit the damage from exposure to radiation.
The Severodvinsk city administration said the radiation level rose to 2 microsieverts per hour for about 30 minutes on Friday before returning to the area’s natural level of 0.1 microsieverts per hour. Emergency officials issued a warning to all workers to stay indoors and close the windows.
The radiation level of 2 microsieverts per hour is only slightly higher than the natural background radiation.
It’s lower than the cosmic radiation that plane passengers are exposed to on longer haul flights.
Neither the Defence Ministry nor Rosatom mentioned the type of rocket that exploded during the test, saying only that it had liquid propellant.
But Rosatom’s mention of a ‘‘nuclear isotope power source’’ led some Russian media to conclude it was the Burevestnik (Petrel), a nuclear-powered cruise missile first revealed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2018 during his state of the nation address along with other doomsday weapons.
–AP