(FreedomBeacon.com)- Last year, Russian scientists embarked on an expedition to study whether the Soviet nuclear sub that sank in the Barents Sea in 1989 still presents a threat to the underwater environment over three decades later.
The K-278 Komsomolets, a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed Russian submarine was off the northern coast of Norway on April 7, 1989, when a fire on board broke out and eventually caused it to sink, killing 42 of the 69 crewmen aboard.
In the years since the concern has been what environmental damage the sub’s nuclear reactor and its two nuclear-armed torpedoes could do.
In last year’s expedition, Russian scientists looked to examine the potential for radiation and if the wreck poses a threat to the environment.
The submarine’s two plutonium warheads and its nuclear reactor now lie 1,680 meters under the Norwegian Sea. This continues to present concerns as radiation is still leaking.
In previous expeditions by both Russia and Norway, radioactive leakage had been detected.
Since the 1990s, scientists in Norway have been monitoring the wreck which sank southwest of Norway’s Bear Island, 350 km northwest of the mainland coast.
In 2019, a joint expedition detected that the radioactive leakage directly around the hull had increased slightly over what was detected in 1998 and 2007. However, the leakage is so deeply submerged that it is unlikely to contaminate fish stocks.
You can read all about the K-278 Komsomolets and the fire that sank it to the bottom of the sea at 19FortyFive.com.
