Strong Nuclear Explosion Shakes North of Russia

After days of total silence, Russia has revealed some details of the explosion at a base of launching nuclear-fueled rockets.

The Russian authorities have tried to downplay the  seriousness of the explosion, but deleting an article posted by a municipality of the damaged city near the blast raised doubts.

Russia has admitted, after much hesitation, that the explosion at a missile launching base in the north of the country has a nuclear character.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/10/europe/russia-jet-propulsion-blast-radiation-intl/index.html

The authorities reconsidering the death toll of at least five  people.

The Russian nuclear agency Rosatom said in a statement that five of its employees were killed in the explosion.

The statement  pointed out that three other people were injured due to burns.

Rosatom confirmed that its employees were providing engineering and technical support related to the fuel used in the rocket engine.

https://see.news/egyptian-russian-foundation-publishes-nuclear-energy-terms-glossary/

Immediately after the incident, the Ministry of Defense said that it occurred during the test "liquid rocket rocket engine", noting the death of "two specialists from their injuries" and the injury of six others.

It was not clear whether the two specialists, who were declared dead, were among the five killed by Rosatom.

Authorities have so far published few details of the incident at the Nyonoxa base, which opened in 1954 and specializes in missile testing for the Russian fleet. In particular, ballistic missiles are being tested.

The incident and the media blackout stirred panic among the population.

If the Russian army and a spokesman for the regional government announced on Thursday that "there has been no radioactive contamination.

The municipality of Severodvinsk, a city of 190,000 people, about 30 kilometers from the base, confirmed on its website that its sensors "recorded an increase in activity radiation for a short time.

However, the news was quickly withdrawn from the city municipality's website, and did not specify the level of radioactivity.

Valentin Magomedov, a local civil defense official, told TASS, a Russian  news agency, that the radiation level had risen to 2.0 micro severt per hour for 30 minutes, noting that the maximum acceptable exposure to radioactivity was 0.6 microsevert per hour.