Fears Putin may be hiding a Chernobyl level nuke disaster as its revealed radiation monitoring sites ‘went offline’ for days after mystery blast
TWO major radiation research stations mysteriously went “silent” after a suspected nuclear blast at a Russian missile testing ground – sparking fears of a Chernobyl-style cover up.
Lassina Zerbo, head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) revealed the monitoring sites near the town of Arkhangelsk went offline after the mystery blast.
“We’re … addressing w/station operators technical problems experienced at two neighbouring stations,” he said on Twitter overnight.
The CTBTO’s International Monitoring System includes atmospheric sensors that pick up so-called radionuclide particles wafting through the air.
Zerbo said data from stations on or near the path of a potential plume of gas from the explosion were still being analysed.
However when contacted, the official state stations at Dubna and Kirov claimed they were suffering from major “communication and network issues.”
International observers now fear the so-called outage could be part of a bid by the Kremlin bid to cover up the full extent of the shocking incident.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told the Wall Street Journal: “It is a very odd coincidence that these stations stopped sending data shortly after the August 8 incident.
“It is probably because they want to obscure the technical details of the missile-propulsion system they are trying and failing to develop.”
There have been reports that Russia has not been fully transparent about what occurred at a military base in the far northern Arkhangelsk region.
The initial report from the country’s nuclear agency said that five workers were killed in a rocket engine explosion.
It’since been reported that radiation levels in Severodvinsk, a nearby city, increased 20 times above normal for about a half hour after the explosion.
Residents are now stocking up on iodine, which helps reduce the effects of radiation exposure.
Two days later, Russia’s state-controlled nuclear agency Rosatom acknowledged that the explosion occurred on an offshore platform during tests of a “nuclear isotope power source,” and that it killed five nuclear engineers and injured three others.
It’s still not clear whether those casualties were in addition to the earlier dead and injured.
At the weekend, we revealed how Russian officials were finally going to evacuate homes neighbouring the mysterious “radiation explosion”.
A train was lined up to remove all Nyonoksa residents while work is undertaken at the missile site testing ground where the tragedy happened.
But the order for locals to clear out was then bizarrely rescinded.
The news came as it was confirmed radiation levels were up to 16 TIMES above the norm in the village which has a population of 500.
The evacuation shambles has chilling echos of the Chernobyl disaster when Communist Party officials tried to play down the immediate threat of the huge nuclear power plant blast.
Those living in and around Nyonoksa have also reportedly been kept in the dark about last week’s shocking explosion.
News of last Wednesday’s evacuation comes as ten medics who provided treatment for those wounded in the explosion were reported to have been sent to Moscow for urgent medical checks.
The frontline doctors were reported to be “depressed as to why they were not told what they were dealing with” in the aftermath of the weapons test.
The medics were not informed that they needed special anti-radiation suits.
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One surgeon’s clothing was checked after an operation using a radiation measuring device – and found to be seriously contaminated.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to confirm that the accident was linked to the Burevestnik missile.
But he told reporters that Russian research and development in the sphere of nuclear-powered missiles “significantly surpass the level reached by other countries and are rather unique.”