ARKHANGELSK, April 8. /TASS/. Background radiation is within norm in the Arctic city of Severodvinsk, where a fire broke out on a Russian nuclear submarine at a naval shipyard on Tuesday, the city administration reported on Wednesday.
It said radiation levels were constantly monitored. "There are no factors that could damage people’s health," the mayor’s office said.
The blaze on the Oryol undergoing repair at the Zvyozdochka shipyard was fully put out at about midnight. For this, the vessel’s dock had to be partially submerged to the submarine’s waterline.
An interdepartmental commission is working at the site looking into circumstances of the fire and assessing the damage.
The fire started at about 2 pm Moscow time on Tuesday, during hot works on the submarine. All people on board left the Oryol, nobody was injured.
"The fire destroyed cable passages of the degaussing gear for reducing the vessel’s magnetic and electromagnetic fields, the acoustic blanket of the tanks of the main ballast and the strong hull. The submarine’s immersion and surfacing systems were also damaged," a source in the inter-department commission for the incident’s probe said on Wednesday.
"If the fire damaged the strong hull, it will be necessary to cut off the burnt section and patch it. If the strong hull is damaged, the timeframe for the submarine’s repairs will be 100% shifted," he said.
There was no ammunition, fuels or lubricants aboard the submarine when the fire started and its nuclear reactor had been shut down. The incident posed no threat of environmental or radioactive contamination.