A fire broke out on Sunday in one of the cabins of a Soviet-era nuclear powered cargo-icebreaker. The state company which runs the vessel said there had been no casualties and no threat to the security of the reactor.
Emergency workers had put out a fire on the Sevmorput ship, which is currently at dock in the northern Russian city of Murmansk. Atomflot, which owns the vessel, said in a statement “The fire was quickly liquidated,” “There were no injuries.” Atomflot, which runs Russia’s fleet of nuclear icebreakers and is a unit of the Rosatom state nuclear corporation, continued “There was no threat to crucial support systems or to the reactor plant,”.
The Murmansk region, in Russia’s northwest, shares borders with Finland and Norway, as well as with the Barents and White seas.
The ship, which entered service in 1988 and went through an extensive upgrade a decade ago, is Russia’s only nuclear-powered ice-breaking transport ship, according to Rosatom.
Sevmorput is one of only four nuclear merchant ships ever built. Built in 1988 she is one of only four nuclear-powered merchant ships ever constructed. The other three – built by the US, Japan and Germany – are no longer in commission.
