Severka sank on May 24th at pier at naval shipyard No. 10 in the closed naval town of Aleksandrovsk on Russia’s Kola Peninsula.
At the time of sinking, all radioactive contaminated equipment onboard was removed, according to a statement from the naval yards officials. The same officials kept silent about the incident for more than two weeks before a local blog-site in Murmansk published an anonymous source providing the information on Monday this week. After, among others, BarentsObserver reported about the accident late Monday, a shipyard official gave an interview about the sinking to the regional GTRK Murman TV-channel.
Today, MBNews reports that the shipyard now is working with a plan on how to lift the sunken former nuclear waste cargo vessel.
12 meters depth
Severka sank at the pier where the water depth is 12 meters. Monitoring of the seawater in the area indicates no increased radiation.
According to information from the Director of the shipyard, published by MBNews, the hull of the partly scrapped nuclear waste cargo vessel sank due to the underwater part of the hull could not resist the cutting work going on above sea level of the vessel.
Tugboats assisted
Two tugboats pulled the vessel to the nearest pier, but the vessel then sank at the pier four hours after the hull broke.
Bi-lateral agreement
Norway and Russia have an agreement to notify each other in case of accidents or incidents where radioactive material can leak out and contaminate the neighboring country. Norwegian radiation authorities have by several occasions stated that it would be better if Russia notified Norway about incidents also if they do not pose any direct threat of radioactive leakages.
No radioactive leakages
On Tuesday afternoon, the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authorities qoutes the shipyards own web-portal when they says no radioactive leakages followed the sinking of Severka.
An interesting fact published on the web portal of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authorities (NRPA) is about a meeting between the Norwegian part and the division within the Russian Ministry of Defence responsible for nuclear safety.
The meeting was a part of the official Norwegian – Russian nuclear safety cooperation in the north.
Meeting, but not notifying
The article was published on June 1st, just days after the former nuclear waste cargo vessel sank, not far from the border to Norway. The NRPA article then stated that the main focus in the Norwegian - Russian cooperation is guidelines for safe handling of nuclear waste… and… including decommissioning of different older radioactive service vessels (like Severka).
The NRPA-article was published after Severka sank, but before NRPA was notified with the sinking through media on Monday this week.
NRPA also writes that the guidelines developed as a part of the cooperation with the Russian Ministry of Defence will be the fundaments for the control to be carried out when the removal of spent nuclear fuel from the Andreeva Bay starts as planned later this summer.
The Andreeva bay is even closer to the Norwegian border than the shipyard where Severka sank.
Read also: Norway will continue nuclear safety cooperation
