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Arctic emergency center opens in Murmansk in 2013

Murmansk is an important link in the Northern Sea Route and host to the nuclear-powered icebreakers operating in Russian Arctic. Photo: BarentsObserver

Russia plans to open ten rescue centers along the Northern Sea Route. Murmansk plans to have its center operational from 2013.

Location

Russia has high hopes for the future of the northern Sea Route and invests nearly €23.4 million in development of ten emergency and rescue centers from Murmansk in the West to Chukotka in the East. 

Three of the centers will be located on Chukotka and Anadyr, the other seven in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Naryan-Mar, Vorkuta, Nadym, Dudinka and Tiksi. A total of 980 persons will be working at the centers.

Projects for the centers have already been prepared and construction is planned to be finished by 2015. The first one, to be established in the port of Dudinka, will open in August 2012.

The center in Murmansk will be ready be 2013, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Regional Development Aleksander Viktorov said at a conference called “Security and Cooperation in the Arctic: New Frontiers”, which recently was held in Murmansk, Regnum reports.

Cargo transport through the Northern Sea Route is expected to skyrocket in course of the next decade. While a total of 820,000 tons of goods was shipped along the Northern Sea Route in 2011, the volumes are expected to almost double in 2012.