Icebreaker with radioactive leak sails towards Murmansk

The incident is by Rosatomflot said to be an event on level “zero” on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Level “zero” means there are no essential threats to the people onboard or to the outside environment.

The exact time of the incident is not reported, but the icebreaker is now said to be on its way back from the Yenisei river towards Murmansk. Estimated sailing time is five days so “Taimyr” will be in port in Murmansk late Sunday or early Monday.

“Taimyr” will sail from Yenisei towards the Kara Sea and cross over the eastern part of the Barents Sea before sailing in the Kola bay towards Murmansk.

Russia’s nuclear powered icebreaker fleet has its homeport at RTP Atomflot, in the northern part of Murmansk, the world’s largest city above the Arctic Circle with 309,000 inhabitants.

Read also: Nuclear sites in Kola Peninsula are all safe, says Governor

A short press-release posted by Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, says the leakage was detected during a planned shutdown of the reactor onboard.

At the moment, there are strengthened monitoring of the technological parameters of the reactor. When the reactor is being shut down, the icebreaker will sail with power supply from the diesel-generators onboard.

“Taimyr” was built in Finland and commissioned in 1989. The icebreaker is especially designed for operation in shallow waters in the Yenisei river from the Kara Sea to the port of Dudinka.

It is unclear if Norwegian authorities are informed about the radioactive leakage incident in Russia. Norway and Russia have an agreement on informing each other in case of incidents and accidents.

- I have not heard about it, says Anne Marit Østreng, head of information with the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authorities when called by BarentsObserver for a comment Thursday morning.

In the department of emergency preparedness no one answered the phone.

Read more articles on nuclear safety in this special section of BarentsObserver.