• Russia.The neighbors of the region affected by the Russian nuclear explosion: "We do not believe anyone. This is a national crisis"
  • Accident: Nyonoksa, the 'radioactive town': they cancel the evacuation but some neighbors leave
  • Russia: Fear of a new Chernobyl after exploding Russian missiles

At the Arjangelsk Regional Clinical Hospital, a public health center in the far north of Russia, last Thursday, August 8, it was a quiet day until three naked men and wrapped in translucent plastic bags entered the emergency room .

The doctors thought that something strange had happened, but all the information they had at that time was that around noon there had been an explosion at a military site near the town of Nyonoksa, next to the White Sea. At that time, the radiation was firing up to 20 times its normal level. The highest rates remained for about 30 minutes in the second largest city in the area, Severodvinsk, half an hour's drive from the hospital in the capital of this Arctic region.

Five scientists and two soldiers had died in the act, while an unspecified number of people were injured. The media 'Baza' says that several wounded were taken to Moscow, and published a video of a police and ambulance convoy making their way through the streets of the Russian capital. Two of the three patients who were treated at the Arjangelsk Regional Clinical Hospital did not even arrive in Moscow: they died on the way to the airport , according to the testimony of the doctors.

The details of the event will probably never be fully known. Five hospital staff members, including chief unit doctors, have confirmed to the Russian newspaper 'The Moscow Times' that agents of the FSB (heir to the KGB) had their colleagues sign confidentiality agreements and that one of the doctors is contaminated. In the health center there is anger with the authorities but also fear of the surveillance to which they are being subjected.

"Repeat what was done in Chernobyl"

The operating room where they were treated, located in a wing on the third floor of the hospital, was closed until August 13, according to local media. In Arjangelsk several neighbors contacted by this newspaper expressed their helplessness and concern about the attitude of the authorities: "Repeat what was done in Chernobyl . " Security services arrived at the hospital the day after the accident, and requisitioned and removed all information about the incident that was in the hospital's records.

An information session was held at the health center with doctors and nurses on August 12. Many complain that their questions were not answered, but to calm their concern they were offered to go to Moscow for tests: 60 health workers accepted the proposal . The first to sign up flew the same day of the meeting. In the Russian capital it was discovered that one of the doctors has cesium-137 in his body, a radioactive isotope that accumulates in the muscles for at least 30 years and multiplies the possibility of suffering from tumors. According to 'The Moscow Times', now it is the Moscow specialists who have moved to Arjangelsk. The risk of exposure to humans depends on the amount and how active cesium-137 is. Its long half-life (the time it takes to reduce its activity in half), which is estimated at 37 years, makes it a health hazard. Precisely the Chernobyl exclusion zone is contaminated with radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137: that's why you can't live there.

In the health center they have questions. Why were these patients taken to a civil hospital and not a military one? Why didn't they inform them of what had happened? In some cases, contamination of health personnel can be avoided by washing the injured and wearing gloves. In fact, Cesium-137 is used in health centers to fight cancers, but incorrect exposure to them also causes them.

Citizen Complaints

In Severodvinsk and Nyonoksa (the small settlement next to the accident area, which the authorities considered evacuating) an environment of concern has been installed. The radiation levels were in values ​​between 4 and 16 times normal for a period of 90 minutes, according to the Federal Service of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Surveillance of Russia. "Obviously the mood is angered by the attitude of the authorities, this is not pleasant for anyone, although we believe that the worst has happened, " Liudmila explained from his home in Severodvinsk. "We are used to these tests and evacuations, there is no reason to panic," says Lydia, another veteran of the area.

Near the scene of the accident, envoys from the authorities asked people to stay inside buildings and close the windows. Now some citizens have taken the initiative and filed a complaint with the prosecutors to investigate the circumstances of the test, and are gathering signatures to demand that such maneuvers never be carried out. "The children were playing along the promenade. We should have been warned," criticizes ecologist Alexei Klimov, a resident of Severodvinsk. Asked by AP, a spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency, declined to comment on these types of accusations, but said the test did not pose any risk to residents of Severodvinsk or other nearby places.

For its part, the Norwegian nuclear safety agency, the DSA, is analyzing amounts of radioactive iodine detected in the air in the north of the country in the days after the rocket explosion in Russia.

The first version of the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that the explosion was in a rocket engine. Neither the Ministry of Defense nor Rosatom revealed the type of weapon that exploded during the test. However, in his statement, Rosatom said the explosion occurred during tests of a "nuclear isotope energy source" on an offshore platform.

The DSA says it has detected radioactive iodine at its air filter station in Svanhovd, which is located on the Russian border. The samples were taken from August 9 to 12, in the days of the 'nuclear crisis' of the Arjangelsk region. "Small amounts of radioactive iodine were measured in the air at our filtering station in Svanhovd (...) The level detected is very low and does not constitute a threat to the population or the environment," says the DSA statement , which will continue investigating any radiation index that may come from Russia.

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