Radiation monitoring of sunken sub
The K-159 (bellona.no)
Within the framework of the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation, an environmental radiation monitoring of the sunken November-class nuclear submarine, started before the weekend. The submarine, K-159, sank in the Barents Sea just north of Murmansk in late August 2003, while being tugged for scrapping from the naval base of Gremikha to naval yard No. 10 in the town of Polyarny.
The submarine was one of the oldest retired submarines of the Russian Northern fleet and due to the lengthy storage period the subs outer hull has deteriorated significantly. The rust-eaten sub, which was retired in 1989, had 10 crew members onboard when it sank near the Kildin Island north of Murmansk in the early morning of August 30, 2003. Only one of the crew members survived.
Bad weather and the poor condition of the submarine’s outer hull were considered to be the prime reason why it sank.
An unmanned British mini-submarine will examine the sunken submarine on the seabed, some 780 feet below the surface. The sunken sub still contains two nuclear reactors with some 800 kilograms of highly radioactive uranium fuel. The Barents Sea is one of the riches fishing grounds in northern Europe. So far, no leakages of radioactivity from the submarines two reactors are reported.
The plan is one day to raise the submarine from the sea-bed. When this will happen is not yet decided. K-159 is one of two Russian nuclear submarines on the seabed of the Barents Sea. The other, the Komsomolets, lays on the seabed south of the Bear Island after it sank on April 7th – 1989. In addition several submarines and reactor compartment with spent nuclear fuel are dumped east of Novaya Zemlya in the Kara Sea.
