Looks like another tragic accident has befallen our Russian
submariner comrades; see below.
R/Jay
Respectfully,
Jay K. Jeffries
Andros Is., Bahamas
As scarce as the truth is, the supply has always been in excess of
the demand.
-Josh Billings
At least 20 die
in accident on Russian nuclear sub
Sat
Nov 8, 2008 7:45pm EST
MOSCOW (Reuters)
- At least 20 people have died and 21 been injured in an accident on board a
Russian nuclear-powered submarine in the Pacific Ocean, a Russian naval
spokesman said on Sunday.
Radiation levels
on board were normal, he said.
Russia's navy
has suffered a string of fatal accidents, including the loss of the Kursk
nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea in August 2000. All 118 sailors aboard
died.
"More than
20 people were killed on a nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean during routine
testing as a result of the unsanctioned functioning of the fire extinguishing
systems," the navy spokesman, Igor Dygalo, said by telephone.
Dygalo did not
give the name of the submarine or specify where it was located. There were 208
people on board at the time of Saturday's accident, some of them from a
shipbuilding company, he added.
"The
reactor section (of the submarine) is working properly," the spokesman
said. "The radiation levels on the ship are normal."
A Russian
destroyer, the Admiral Tributs, was providing assistance and taking some of the
injured crew from the submarine to port, Dygalo said.
He did not say
where the ships were but the Tributs is normally based at Vladivostok, Russia's
main Far Eastern naval port, according to Russian media.
President Dmitry
Medvedev has been informed about the accident, Russian news agencies reported.
The state-owned
RIA news agency quoted a highly placed official in the Pacific Fleet as saying
the accident happened in the bow of the submarine.
In August 2005,
seven Russian sailors were freed with help from a British rescue crew after
three days trapped inside an AS-28 mini-submarine 600 feet down in the Pacific
with dwindling air supplies.
(Reporting by
Guy Faulconbridge, writing by Michael Stott, editing by Alison Williams)