MOSCOW,
Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Two servicemen were killed and one injured in a fire onboard
a Russian nuclear submarine late Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported on
Thursday quoting navy officials.
The fire aboard the Daniil Moskovsky submarine of the
Russian Northern Fleet was put out at midnight and there is no threat of a
radiation leak, a Northern Fleet spokesman said.
A warrant officer and a sailor died, likely from
carbon monoxide poisoning, in the incident. Another sailor, who was helping
evacuate people from the vessel, was injured.
The fire broke out during a planned mission in the Barents
Sea as a result of a short circuit in the power supply system in one of
the bow compartments, and the submarine has been towed back to its base in
Vidyayevo, the Interfax and Itar-Tass news agencies reported.
"The emergency shutdown system of the nuclear
propulsion plant was activated," the spokesman was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Masorin said the navy
command did not notify neighboring states of the fire "since there was no threat
of a radiation leak."
The Daniil Moskovsky, a Viktor-3 class submarine,
joined the Russian navy in March 1991 and has a crew of 96 submariners, and it
is equipped with RK-55 Granat cruise missiles and Shkval and Vodopad torpedoes,
according to Itar-Tass.
The worst accident involving the Northern Fleet in
recent years was the sinking of the Kursk submarine. It sank during a military
exercise in the Barents Sea on Aug. 12, 2000, after an explosion ripped through
the vessel and all the 118 sailors on board died.
Last August, a British naval rescue ship helped
lift to the surface a small Russian submarine stuck on the Pacific seabed. All
submariners onboard survived. Enditem
