Because someone ate other people's money Twelve employees of the Ministry of Atomic Energy were exposed to radiation while dismantling a nuclear reactor at the Gremikha base in the Murmansk region, intended for disposal. Workers irradiated while dismantling a nuclear reactor,...

Because someone ate other people's money

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11 employees of the Ministry of Atomic Energy received radiation exposure while dismantling a nuclear reactor at the Gremikha base in the Murmansk region intended for disposal.

Workers were exposed while disassembling a nuclear reactor destined for disposal. According to the official version - due to a security breach. According to Rashid Alimov, a representative of the Norwegian environmental organization Belluna, the work was carried out without special suits and any means of protection against radiation.

Andrey Bushmanov, head of the clinic at the Moscow Institute of Biophysics, where one of the victims was taken, told Novaya Gazeta that the radiation dose was about twenty roentgens (at the norm, two roentgens). If it were a little more, all 12 people would get radiation sickness.

Work without a protective suit, according to Andrey Bushmanov, is absolutely unacceptable in such conditions. As he understood from the stories of his patient, working conditions in Gremikha are very poor and the work with nuclear waste is not controlled by the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision.

According to Alexander Panfilov, deputy head of the Department of Security, Ecology and Emergencies, the situation can be considered an ordinary incident. An internal ministerial investigation is underway.

The Gremikha base serves as a repository for radioactive waste, spent nuclear fuel and the largest storage facility for the Northern Fleet's submarines destined for dismantlement.

In 2001, the base was transferred from the Navy to SevRAO (an organization for the dismantlement of nuclear submarines), subordinate to Minatom. However, its work is not controlled by any independent organization. In 1999, the Russian Federal Supervision Authority for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (Gosatomnadzor) was deprived of the ability to control the disposal of boats by a government decree. Now the activity of "SevRAO" of Minatom is controlled only by Minatom. By the way, the disposal works are financed by the international radiation safety programs of Norway, Sweden and other European countries. Nevertheless, international observers are almost not allowed there.

There are about seven more boats with unloaded fuel, one and a half tons of fuel and six radiation-hazardous reactors at the base.