11194
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: 'Brief radiation spike' after 'rocket engine' blast in northern Russia
|
Russians seem to be ramping up military with resulting accidents - this so soon after the biggy explosion in Siberia. This seems to be a nuclear missile gone wrong with the warhead getting rapidy dismantled. A rocket engine explosion on a naval test range in northern Russia has killed two people and injured six, the defence ministry told Russian media. The victims of the explosion in Arkhangelsk region were civilian specialists while military and civilian personnel are among the injured. The ministry said radiation levels were normal but the city of Severodvinsk registered a "brief spike" in levels. An area of the White Sea nearby has reportedly been closed for a month. But the deputy head of Archangelsk port, Sergei Kozub, told the BBC the closure was planned before the accident. Radiation levels peaked between 11:50 and 12:30 (08:50-09:30 GMT) before falling and normalising by 14:00, the city administration in Severodvinsk said on its website, without reporting how significant the spike had been. It is unclear what could have caused radiation levels to rise. Local people were reportedly urged to take precautions against radiation. No increase in ambulance call-outs was recorded, the administration added. A woman in Severodvinsk named only Alina told Russian news site lenta.ru: "I work in the hospital where they're bringing the injured. "They advise everyone to close their windows and drink iodine, 44 drops per glass of water." https://lenta.ru/news/2019/08/08/sever/ Children in local kindergartens were taken indoors after reports of the blast and parents were advised not to take them outside in the evening, other residents were quoted as saying. What do we know about the explosion? The defence ministry did not say officially where or when the blast occurred but unofficial sources say it happened near the village of Nyonoksa, where a navy missile test range is located. Nyonoksa is about 47km (29 miles) west of Severodvinsk, which has a population of nearly 200,000 and is 1,260km from the Russian capital, Moscow. "During testing of a liquid jet engine an explosion and combustion of the product occurred," the ministry said in a statement. "There have been no harmful chemicals released into the atmosphere, the radiation levels are normal." Emergency aircraft were used to airlift the injured. They included defence ministry officials and developer company representatives, who "had injuries of varying severity", the statement added. There had been earlier reports of a fire at a military facility near Nyonoksa. Telegram-based media outlet Mash said radiation levels in the village were three times higher than normal. Nyonoksa carries out tests for virtually every missile system used by the Russian navy, including sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-aircraft missiles. It is the second accident involving Russia's military this week. On Monday, one person was killed and eight others were injured in a blaze at an ammunition dump in Siberia. Flying munitions damaged a school and a kindergarten in the area. More than 9,500 people were evacuated. An investigation is under way into the cause of the incident. |
11196
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: 'Brief radiation spike' after 'rocket engine' blast in northern...
    Meanwhile, a new report claimed six people injured in yesterday's worrying accident suffered serious radiation doses. The group have been sent to Moscow for treatment, said online news source BAZA. The six had suffered both radiation and explosives injuries, it was claimed. The latest report says the men were injured during an explosion to test a new type of engine on a naval vessel. An 'emergency situation' arose and there was an 'explosion'. Defence ministry sources said that the men's cloths had been burned as soon as they were hospitalised with suspected radiation. The scale of local panic in the aftermath of the radiation spike' incident was revealed today, as a video emerged showing the wounded being transported by helicopter to a regional hospital in Arkhangelsk. There was 'mass hysteria' among residents 'because of the radiation rumours' reported a local radio station in Severodvinsk. This led to a rush to buy iodine-containing medicines which quickly sold out from pharmacies. Some displayed signs to say they had no iodine left. In local hospitals people were recommended to drink half a glass of milk with 44 drops of iodine for adults and 22 drops for children under 14, said one report. Other residents in Severodvinsk and nearby Nyonoksa sought to buy vodka and wine, said local reports. |
11197
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: 'Brief radiation spike' after 'rocket engine' blast in northern...
|
At the same time, preparation and launching means are being developed; technological processes for manufacturing, assembling and testing are being improved. Russia's state-run nuclear corporation Rosatom says that a team of its employees had been working on an experimental "isotope power source" when it exploded, killing five people and injuring three more in a still very mysterious accident yesterday. The company offered no specifics about the project, but this new information, coupled with other details, suggests that this power source may be associated with a nuclear-powered cruise missile called Burevestnik that the Kremlin first announced publicly last year. The presence of the nuclear fuel carrier ship Serebryanka in the area at the time of the accident also points to Burevestnik. This ship was reportedly part of a flotilla that Russia sent into the Arctic to reportedly recover one or more crashed Burevestniks last year. The vessel, which is configured to safely transport nuclear fuel rods and similar cargo, would be well suited to carrying nuclear-powered cruise missiles. This ship remains inside a portion of the Dvina Bay in the White Sea that the Russian government closed off to all public and commercial activity after the incident. More U.S. Has Been Secretly Watching Russia's Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missiles Crash and Burn Successful or not, if Russia is test flying these weapons, this means it has been repeatedly crashing nuclear reactors into the ground or the ocean. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18948/u-s-has-been-secretly-watching-russias-nuclear-powered-cruise-missiles-crash-and-burn Russia's Federal Forestry Agency says more than 2.7m hectares (6.7m acres) of remote forest are currently burning across six Siberian and eastern regions. However, Greenpeace Russia says as many as 3.3m hectares are burning - an area bigger than Belgium. |
11201
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Russia’s New Nukes Are Similar to a Risky Project the U.S. Abandoned
|
The U.S. Air Force’s Project Pluto sought to create nuclear-powered cruise missiles, but was terminated decades ago after second thoughts over the dangers Part of Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation speech Thursday sounded like something from a 1960s James Bond film. Putin announced his country has developed and recently tested a cruise missile and an underwater drone that are nuclear-powered as well as hypersonic missiles capable of flying at up to 20 times the speed of sound. Putin’s words were punctuated by video and computer graphics the Russian leader used to drive home the point that the weapons would render NATO’s U.S.-led missile defense systems “useless.” For the West, the prospect of Russia having all three of those new weapons is unsettling to say the least. But the nuclear-powered cruise missile, in particular, harkens back to a weapons system the U.S. Air Force began developing at the height of the cold war and later abandoned. Project Pluto (pdf), an initiative commissioned in 1957, had the goal of developing nuclear-powered engines for use in Supersonic Low-Altitude Missiles (SLAM). The Pentagon tested prototype engines with 500-megawatt reactors at the Department of Energy Nevada Test Site in 1961 and 1964, but soon after had second thoughts about the project. Scientific American spoke with Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, about the eerie parallels between Putin’s nuclear-powered missile and Project Pluto— including the Pentagon’s reasons for ending the project, and the lessons about the dangers of nuclear power and weaponry that seem to have been forgotten. |
Responses:
[11202]
11202
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Russia evacuates village near site of military blast
|
Russia will evacuate a village tomorrow near the site of a military missile blast after experts revealed radiation levels had spiked 16 fold after the rocket accident. Five employees of the Kremlin's nuclear agency died when a rocket engine exploded at the far northern military base last Thursday outside the village of Nyonoksa. Today's Russia's state weather service said radiation levels had spiked in the nearby city of Severodvinsk up to 16 times last week, despite officials previously claiming no dangerous substances had been released. A pre-dawn train will evacuate all 500 villagers of Nyonksa on Wednesday, ahead of what the authorities claim were pre-planned activities by the military. Today it was revealed, ten medics who provided treatment to the wounded last week had been dispatched to Moscow for urgent medical checks. The front-line doctors were reported to be 'depressed as to why they were not told what they were dealing with' in the aftermath of the weapons test. The medics were not informed that they needed special anti-radiation suits. One surgeon's clothing was checked after an operation using a radiation measuring device - and found to be seriously contaminated. They have been sent to Burnazyan Federal Medical and Biophysical Centre which specialises in conditions caused by radiation, and where wounded scientists from the incident are also being treated. US nuclear experts this weekend blamed the testing of a nuclear- powered cruise missile for the mysterious explosion. The Russian Ministry of Defence, quoted by state-run news outlets, had reported the blast was from liquid propellant for a rocket engine. Thousands of people attended the burials of the five nuclear engineers killed in the accident yesterday in the city of Sarov. Two of the men were blown into the sea at the top secret naval weapons testing zone in the White Sea. Their bodies were initially lost but later found and funerals for all those killed were to be held in a secret closed nuclear research town in Sarov from where foreigners are banned. According to one version, the troubling missile accident came as the scientists were working on the nuclear engine of deadly Burevestnik cruise missile with 'unlimited range' - nicknamed the 'Flying Chernobyl' - when it exploded. One of the dead was Evgeny Korotaev, 50, a leading electronics engineer and also a popular DJ, whose second wife had given birth to twin girls just seven months ago. Like the other dead, he worked for the classified Institute of Experimental Physics based in Sarov, 235 miles east of Moscow, known as Arzamas-16 in Soviet times. While presenting the new missile, Putin claimed it will have an unlimited range, allowing it to circle the globe unnoticed, bypassing the enemy's missile defense assets to strike undetected. The president claimed the missile had successfully undergone the first tests, but observers were sceptical, arguing that such a weapon could be very difficult to handle and harmful to the environment. Some reports suggested previous tests of the Burevestnik missile had been conducted on the barren Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya and the Kapustin Yar testing range in southern Russia before they were moved to Nyonoksa. Moving the tests from sparsely populated areas to a range close to a big city may reflect the military's increased confidence in the new weapon. |
Responses:
None