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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 14 august 2019

Russian military orders village evacuation, then cancels it

MOSCOW (AP) — The Rus-
sian military on Tuesday
told residents of a village
near a navy testing range
to evacuate, but can-
celled the order hours later,
adding to the uncertainty
and confusion fueled by a
missile explosion last week
that led to a brief spike in
radiation that frightened
residents and raised new
questions about the mili-
tary's weapons program.
Initially the military told
residents of Nyonoksa, a
village of about 500, to
move out temporarily, cit-
ing unspecified activities at
the range. But a few hours
later, it said the planned
activities were cancelled
and rescinded the request
to leave, said Ksenia Yu- In this grab taken from a footage provided by the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM press service, people gather
dina, a spokeswoman for for the funerals of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by a rocket explosion in Sarov, the closed city, located 370 kilometers (230
the Severodvinsk regional miles) east of Moscow, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019.
administration. Associated Press
Local media in Severod-
vinsk said Nyonoksa resi- er up disasters that added After Thursday's missile ex- have found no trace of ra- But Rosatom's statement
dents regularly receive sim- to public nervousness. plosion, the Severodvinsk dioactive contamination. saying that the explosion
ilar temporary evacuation "It's shocking when people city administration said the After Thursday's explosion, occurred during tests of
orders usually timed to tests who live there, let alone radiation level rose to 2 Russian authorities also a "nuclear isotope power
at the range. us, have no idea what re- microsieverts per hour for closed part of Dvina Bay on source" led observers to
The Defense Ministry ini- ally happened," Svetlana about 30 minutes before the White Sea to shipping conclude it was the Bure-
tially said Thursday's explo- Alexievich, a Nobel Prize- returning to the area's natu- for a month, in what could vestnik (Petrel), a nucle-
sion of a rocket engine at winning author who wrote ral level of 0.1 microsieverts be an attempt to prevent ar-powered cruise missile
the navy range killed two a book containing first- per hour. Emergency of- outsiders from witnessing code-named Skyfall by
people and injured six oth- hand accounts of the 1986 ficials issued a warning to an operation to recover NATO that was first re-
ers, but the state-controlled Chernobyl nuclear disaster, all workers to stay indoors the missile debris. vealed by Russian President
Rosatom nuclear corpora- said on Ekho Moskvy ra- and close the windows. "The military's desire to Vladimir Putin in March 2018
tion said two days later that dio. "It looks like we haven't Spooked residents rushed keep a tight lid on informa- along with other doomsday
the blast also killed five of learned the lessons of Cher- to buy iodide, which can tion about armed forces ... weapons.
its nuclear engineers and nobyl and Fukushima." help limit the damage from has led to vitally important President Donald Trump
injured three others. It's still When reactor No. 4 at the exposure to radiation. information being hidden backed that theory Mon-
not clear what the final toll Chernobyl nuclear power Yudina said that radiation from the public in a criti- day, tweeting, "The United
is. plant in Soviet Ukraine ex- levels in Severodvinsk, a cal situation," independent States is learning much from
And just as the Severod- ploded and burned on city of 183,000 about 30 ki- military analyst Alexan- the failed missile explosion
vinsk administration report- April 26, 1986, Soviet lead- lometers (20 miles) east of der Golts said in a com- in Russia. We have similar,
ed a brief spike in radiation ers initially tried to hide the Nyonoksa, have been nor- mentary. Neither the De- though more advanced,
levels, the Defense Ministry disaster from the public mal since Thursday. fense Ministry nor Rosatom technology. The Russian
insisted that no radiation and it took them days to Local emergency officials named the type of rocket 'Skyfall' explosion has peo-
had been released — a acknowledge the full scale also announced after tak- that exploded during the ple worried about the air
blunt denial reminiscent of of the world's worst nuclear ing ground samples from test, saying only that it had around the facility, and far
Soviet-era attempts to cov- accident. around the area that they liquid propellant. beyond. Not good!"q