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Two killed in Russian sub blaze | Two killed in Russian sub blaze |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Two Russian sailors have died in a fire on board a nuclear submarine. | |
The blaze is reported to have been extinguished, and sources say there is no danger of a radiation leak. | |
The submarine's nuclear reactor was shut down and the vessel was being towed across the Barents Sea to a base in Vidyayevo, reports said. | |
The Russian submarine fleet has been dogged by accidents. In 2000, the Kursk submarine sank in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 people on board. | |
Last year the crew of a Russian mini-submarine stranded on the bed of the Pacific had to be rescued by the British navy. | Last year the crew of a Russian mini-submarine stranded on the bed of the Pacific had to be rescued by the British navy. |
The Russian authorities have sometimes delayed disclosing the full extent of what has happened, says the BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow. | |
Protection device 'activated' | |
The submarine, the Daniil Moskovsky (St Daniel of Moscow), was anchored off the Rybachiy peninsula, on Russia's north coast near the border with Finland, when the fire broke out. | |
Russian naval sources are quoted as saying that the device protecting the submarine's nuclear reactor was activated, and that there is no danger of a radiation leak. | |
"The electric equipment of the submarine, which was in the Barents Sea, caught fire in the early hours of today," a source in the Russian defence ministry said. | |
Interfax quoted an unnamed Northern Fleet spokesman as saying there was "no threat of nuclear contamination". | |
A warrant officer and a sailor were killed, the agency said. | A warrant officer and a sailor were killed, the agency said. |
An investigation into the incident is to be carried out. |