The Nuclear Hazards of the Recovery of the Nuclear Powered Submarine Kursk

Начало книги

On Saturday, 12 August 2000 and exactly at 7.29.50 GMT a small and relatively insignificant seismic disturbance was recorded by a Norwegian seismological station. It was followed one hundred and thirty five seconds later with a much more significant event, equivalent to about 3 to 3.5 Richter scale. None of those at the recording stations in Norway, Finland, Scotland, Canada, Alaska and elsewhere realized that this second explosion marked the death knell of an advanced nuclear powered submarine in the Barents Sea.

During the morning of 14 August the rescue centre at Bodø in northern Norway received rumor of an accident on board a then unknown Russian submarine somewhere north of Murmansk. This was the first inkling in the West of a very serious situation, the details of which were to unfurl over the following hours when it became apparent, and was subsequently confirmed by the Russian Federation (RF) Northern Fleet headquarters in Severomorsk, that a submarine had foundered. At about 16.30 that day the Norwegian Moscow embassy was notified by the Russian Federation authorities that there had been an accident to a submarine — that boat was the OSCAR II (RF PLARK class), cruise missile armed and nuclear powered submarine Kursk.

Читать дальше →