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Russia Says Nuclear Isotopes Found After Blast That Killed Five

Russia said air tests found traces of nuclear isotopes after a deadly blast that killed five atomic scientists.

Russia Says Nuclear Isotopes Found After Blast That Killed Five
Flag of the Russian Federation. (Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Russia said air tests found traces of nuclear isotopes after a deadly blast that killed five atomic scientists and caused a spike in radiation at a remote military facility.

Barium-139, barium-140, strontium-91 and lanthanum-140 were found in a cloud of radioactive gases that drifted over the city of Severodvinsk following the Aug. 8 explosion on a nearby offshore platform in the White Sea, the state meteorological and environmental monitoring service reported on its website Monday.

The cloud caused a brief surge in radiation levels, but the isotopes had a short half-life of between 83 minutes and 12.8 days and “the radiation situation has stabilized” now, it said.

Russia Says Nuclear Isotopes Found After Blast That Killed Five

Radiation levels spiked as high as 16 times normal immediately after the explosion in the northern Arkhangelsk region. After Russia initially refused to acknowledge that radioactive materials were involved, the state nuclear agency, Rosatom, said five employees died during a weapons test using “isotope power sources.”

The latest evidence “is proof that it was a nuclear reactor that exploded,” said Nils Bohmer, research and development manager at Norway’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, according to the Barents Observer online newspaper. “The presence of decay products like barium and strontium is coming from a nuclear chain reaction,” and not an isotope source in a propellant engine, he said.

President Vladimir Putin said last week the accident presented “no threat” and had occurred during “work on promising weapons systems.” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that the weapon being tested was a nuclear-powered cruise missile that Putin unveiled last year.

The Norwegian nuclear safety expert Nils Bohmer said the information on the radioactive isotopes released into the air showed that the blast occurred with a nuclear reactor rather than an isotope source in a propellant engine.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Paul Abelsky

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