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What Exactly Happened at Russian Missile Test Site?

Mike Eckel - RFE/RL

   There are reports of panic buying of iodine drops in Severodvinsk.
   Emergency officials reported a spike in background radiation. The White
   Sea bay where both the shipbuilding port and the regional capital,
   Arkhangelsk, are located has been ordered closed for swimming and
   fishing because ofthe presence of toxic rocket fuel.

   A month after a fire aboard a secretive military submarine killed 14
   people and prompted criticism of the Russian Defense Ministry, a new
   fatal incident involving military forces in Russia's far north has
   raised new criticism of how authorities handle deadly, and potentially
   embarrassing, information.

   The explosion, reported Thursday, occurred in Nyonoksa, a Dvina Bay
   port not far from the shipbuilding town of Severodvinsk, at a naval
   site that has been used for decades to test missiles, including
   intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

   Deaths, injuries

   In its initial statement on the incident, the Defense Ministry said two
   people were killed and six injuredin the blast and the fire that
   resulted. The ministry said that liquid rocket fuel was the cause of
   the blast, but that "no harmful chemicals were released into the
   atmosphere."

   (That death toll was [1]updated to five Saturday, according to a
   statement issued by Rosatom. That the update was released bythe
   state-run atomic power agency, not the Defense Ministry, added to
   mounting evidence of some sort of nuclear-related accident at the
   site.)

   In the hours that followed, however, city emergency officials in
   Severodvinsk reported a spike in radiation levels.

   The levels were 20 times higher than normal, [2]according to
   Greenpeace, which prompted the environmental group to call on federal
   authorities to identify what kind of radiation had been released and
   whetherit was any danger to nearby residents.

References

   1. https://www.rferl.org/a/death-toll-five-people-arkhangelsk-nyonoksa-military-blast-radiation-russia/30102673.html
   2. https://greenpeace.ru/news/2019/08/08/greenpeace-trebuet-proverki-skachka-radiacionnogo-fona-v-arhangelskoj-oblasti/

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