A rocket explosion at a Russian arms depot has left five people dead and three injured, state nuclear corporation Rosatom confirmed.

The blast happened during tests on a liquid propellant rocket engine in the Nyonska test range on early Saturday, reported the RIA news agency.

Rosatom said the injured workers sustained various degrees of burns at the accident and had been taken to special facilities for medical treatment.

The latest blast comes after a radiation leak which killed two people and injured six more - which could have been triggered during tests of Vladmir Putin's 6,000mph hypersonic missile.

A nearby city had reported a rise in radiation levels 20 times above the normal level.

Authorities said they had been forced to shut down part of a bay in the White Sea to shipping as a result.

Local residents have been stocking up iodine used to reduce the effects of radiation exposure after the accident, regional media have reported.

Russia's Ministry of Defence has given few details of the accident.

Although the defence ministry initially said that no harmful chemicals were released into the atmosphere and that radiation levels were unchanged, authorities in the nearby city of Severodvinsk reported what they described as a brief spike in radiation.

No official explanation has been given for why such an accident would cause radiation to spike.

The radiation statement put out by the city of Severodvinsk disappeared from the Internet on Friday without explanation.

An unidentified naval officer quoted by the Kommersant newspaper said the accident could have occurred at a testing site at sea and that the explosion of a rocket could have caused a toxic fuel spill.

Russia media have said that the rocket engine explosion may have occurred at a weapons testing area near the village of Nyonoksa.

Those reports say an area near Nyonoksa is used for tests on weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles that are used by the Russian navy.

Greenpeace has cited data from the Emergencies Ministry that it said showed radiation levels had risen 20 times above the normal level in Severodvinsk around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Nyonoksa. </s> Image copyright Russian Defence Ministry website Image caption A cruise missile test-firing in Russia's Arctic north (file photo)

Five people were killed and three injured following a rocket explosion on an Arctic naval test range in Russia on Thursday, state nuclear company Rosatom confirmed.

Rosatom said the accident occurred during tests on a liquid propellant rocket engine.

The three injured staff members suffered serious burns in the accident.

Authorities had previously said that two people died and six were injured in the blast at the site in Nyonoksa.

The company told Russian media that its engineering and technical team had been working on the "isotope power source" for the propulsion system.

The Nyonoksa site carries out tests for virtually every missile system used by the Russian navy, including sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-aircraft missiles.

Authorities in Severodvinsk, 47km (29 miles) east of Nyonoksa said that radiation levels shortly after the blast were higher than normal for about 40 minutes but returned to normal.

Locals have rushed to buy medical iodine, with pharmacies' stocks of iodine reported to be running out in the cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk.

The rush for iodine was reported earlier by a news website for the Arkhangelsk region, 29.ru.

Low-level radiation spike

It also said medics who evacuated the injured at Nyonoksa wore chemical and nuclear protection suits.

There was a rush on iodine stocks during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, which sent a huge plume of radiation across Europe.

On Thursday the Severodvinsk administration reported a 40-minute spike in radiation, which reached 2 microsieverts per hour, then fell back to the normal 0.11 microsieverts. Both levels are too small to cause radiation sickness.

The administration has now deleted its statement online about the spike. The BBC asked officials there why, and they said "because this incident comes under the authority of the defence ministry".

The defence ministry insisted that "there have been no harmful chemicals released into the atmosphere, the radiation levels are normal".

Ammunition dump blaze

It is the second accident involving Russia's military this week.

On Monday, one person was killed and eight others were injured in a blaze at an ammunition dump in Siberia.

Flying munitions damaged a school and a kindergarten in the area. More than 9,500 people were evacuated. </s> Russia’s nuclear agency said Saturday an explosion during missile testing in the Arctic left five workers dead and involved radioactive isotopes after a nearby city recorded a spike in radiation levels.

Rosatom said the force of the explosion on Thursday blew several of its staff from a testing platform into the sea.

Russia’s military did not initially say that the accident involved nuclear equipment, but stressed that radiation levels were normal afterwards.

Officials in the nearby city of Severodvinsk nonetheless reported that radiation levels briefly increased after the accident.

The incident occurred in the far northern Arkhangelsk region during testing of a liquid propellant jet engine when an explosion sparked a fire, killing two, a defence ministry statement said.

It was not known whether those two deaths were among the five that Rosatom reported.

Russian state news agencies quoted a defence ministry source as saying both defence ministry and Rosatom employees had been killed.

Rosatom said its staff were providing engineering and technical support for the “isotope power source” of a missile.

The missile was being tested on a platform at sea when its fuel caught fire and triggered an explosion, Rosatom said in a statement quoted on Russian television.

Several staff were blown into the sea by the blast, the nuclear agency said, adding that it only announced the deaths once there was no more hope that the employees had survived.

The accident left three other people with burns and other injuries, Rosatom said.

Authorities initially released few details of the accident at the Nyonoksa test site on the White Sea, used for testing missiles deployed in nuclear submarines and ships since the Soviet era.

The defence ministry said six defence ministry employees and a developer were injured, while two “specialists” died of their wounds.

Professor Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies said his “working hypothesis” was that the blast “was related to Russia’s nuclear-powered cruise missile, the 9M730 Burevestnik (NATO name: SSC-X-9 Skyfall).”

Authorities in Severodvinsk, 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the test site, said Thursday on their website that automatic radiation detection sensors in the city “recorded a brief rise in radiation levels” around noon that day.

The post was later taken down and the defence ministry said radiation levels were normal after the accident.

A Severodvinsk civil defence official, Valentin Magomedov, told TASS state news agency that radiation levels rose to 2.0 microsieverts per hour for half an hour from 11:50 am (0850 GMT).

This exceeded the permitted limit of 0.6 microsieverts, he added.

Greenpeace Russia published a letter from officials at a Moscow nuclear research centre who gave the same figure, but said higher radiation levels lasted for an hour. The officials said this did not present a significant risk to public health.

Ankit Panda of the Federation of American Scientists noted on Twitter that the missile “is suspected to have some sort of a miniaturized reactor in its propulsion unit,” and added: “a crash likely resulted in not-insignificant radioisotope dispersion.”

Russian online media published an unattributed video which reportedly showed ambulances speeding through Moscow to a centre that specialises in the treatment of radiation victims.

Rosatom said the injured were being treated at a “specialised medical centre”.

An expert from Moscow’s Institute for Nuclear Research, Boris Zhuikov, told RBK independent news site that isotope power sources are not normally dangerous for people working with them.

“If they are damaged, people who are nearby could be hurt. Isotope sources use various types of fuel: plutonium, promethium or cerium,” Zhuikov said.

The radioactivity levels involved are “absolutely not comparable with those during serious accidents at reactors,” he added.

But news of the accident prompted Severodvinsk residents to rush to pharmacies for iodine, which can help prevent the thyroid gland from absorbing radiation.

“People started to panic. Within a matter of an hour all the iodine and iodine-containing drugs were sold out,” pharmacist Yelena Varinskaya told AFP.

In 1986, the Soviet Union suffered the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl, a disaster that authorities initially tried hard to cover up. </s> MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of people have attended the burial of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by an explosion during tests of a new rocket.

The engineers, who died on Thursday, were laid to rest Monday in the city of Sarov that hosts Russia's main nuclear weapons research center.

The Defense Ministry initially said the explosion at the navy's testing range in Nyonoksa in the northwestern Arkhangelsk region killed two people and injured a further six, but the state-controlled Rosatom nuclear concern acknowledged later that the blast also killed five of its workers and injured three others.

Rosatom said the explosion occurred while the engineers were testing "a nuclear isotope power source" for a rocket. Local authorities in nearby Severodvinsk reported a brief spike in radiation levels after the explosion. </s> The mysterious explosion in northern Russia on Thursday that left at least five people dead and unleashed a radiation spike may have involved a secret, new nuclear-powered cruise missile touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin last year as a weapon that would render NATO's American-led missile defense system "useless."

The incident on Thursday took place at a military shooting range in Nyonoksa in the far northern Arkhangelsk region. Russia's Defense Ministry initially said the blast killed two people and injured six, but the state-controlled nuclear agency Rosatom later disclosed that the explosion killed five of its workers and injured three others. It wasn't immediately clear if Rosatom's figures were in addition to the casualties announced by the Defense Ministry or if it included the ministry's earlier numbers.

Rosatom said the explosion occurred while engineers were testing "a nuclear isotope power source" for a rocket. Local authorities in nearby Severodvinsk reported a brief spike in radiation levels after the explosion, swiftly publishing a statement on a local administration website -- but then later removing it without explanation.

Data cited by Greenpeace from Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations showed radiation levels rose 20 times above the normal level in the city, which is about 18 miles from the testing site.

While the Russian military has remained quiet about what type of rocket may have been involved in the test, the research institute that employed five of the scientists that died said Sunday night a small nuclear reactor had exploded during the experiment in the White Sea.

Vyacheslav Solovyov, the scientific director of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, said in a video statement to a local newspaper that the agency was working on a number of experimental technologies, including studying "small-scale sources of energy with the use of fissile materials." He said similar work is taking place in the United States, but did not disclose how much material had been involved in the incident Thursday, according to the Guardian.

“We are now trying to understand, we are working closely with a government commission, analyzing the entire chain of events to assess the scale of the accident and to understand its causes,” he said.

Two U.S.-based nuclear experts told Reuters on Friday that a liquid rocket propellant explosion would not release radiation, leading to speculation the nuclear-powered cruise missile was involved. U.S. intelligence officials told the New York Times they believe the blast involved a prototype of a missile Russia calls the 9M730 Buresvestnik. The NATO alliance has designated it the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.

During his 2018 state of the nation address, Putin unveiled the missile, along with other new weapons that he said made NATO's U.S.-led missile defense system "useless."

The Russian leader claimed the nuclear-powered cruise missile had an unlimited range, flew at a high speed and was capable of maneuverability that would allow it to pierce any missile defense. While Putin boasted of the ability to strike long-range targets, two U.S. officials briefed on Moscow's military capabilities told Fox News at the time the weapon was not operational yet and still in its “nascent" stage.

“The nuclear-powered cruise missile Putin bragged about has actually crashed a few times,” during recent testing in the Arctic, one official said. “Think about the environmental impact of that,” the official added. Both agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

RUSSIAN PHARMACIES REPORT RISE IN SALES OF IODINE NEAR SITE OF MYSTERIOUS MILITARY EXPLOSION

Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis tweeted Friday the "working hypothesis" was the incident was related to the 9M730 Burevestnik.

Lewis also shared an image on Twitter from Planet Labs that showed the Serebryanka, a nuclear fuel carrier, near the missile test site. He told Reuters his team examined Automatic Identification System signals from ships located off the coast, which showed the Serebryanka was located inside an “exclusion zone” set up off the coast a month before the apparent failed test.

“What’s important is that the Serebryanka is inside that exclusion zone. It’s there. It’s inside the ocean perimeter that they set up. It’s not there by accident,” he told the news agency. “I think they were probably there to pick up a propulsion unit off the ocean floor.”

He also told Reuters that the U.S. tried to develop a nuclear-powered missile engine in the 1950s, but it let off radiation that was "a health hazard to anyone underneath it."

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The explosion last week created a run on iodine in nearby cities. Iodine prevents the thyroid gland from absorbing radiation, which can be dispersed in the air during a nuclear accident. Shipping in the Dvinsk Bay on the White Sea has also been shut down for a month after the accident, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On Monday, thousands of people attended the burial of the five Russian nuclear engineers who were killed in the blast. The engineers were laid to rest in the city of Sarov that hosts Russia's main nuclear weapons research center.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Russian authorities have told people in a village near the site of a deadly missile explosion involving a nuclear power test to "leave the territory", after the accident triggered a spike in radiation.

The country's state weather service said radiation levels spiked in the Russian city of Severodvinsk by up to 16 times last Thursday after what officials say was an explosion during a rocket engine test on a sea platform.

"We have received a notification ... about the planned activities of the military authorities. In this regard, residents of Nyonoksa were asked to leave the territory of the village from 14 August," authorities in Severodvinsk were quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

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It comes following an accident still cloaked in much secrecy, but which the nuclear agency Rosatom said occurred while engineers in Arkhangelsk, were testing a “nuclear isotope power source�? for a rocket engine, a tragedy that fuelled radiation fears and raised questions about a secretive weapons programme.

The accident, which occurred on the coast around 600 miles north of Moscow, killed five Russian nuclear engineers, who were laid to rest in funerals attended by thousands of mourners.

Shape Created with Sketch. Huge explosion at Russia ammunition depot: In pictures Show all 12 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Huge explosion at Russia ammunition depot: In pictures 1/12 An explosion at an ammunition depot near the town of Achinsk in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 2/12 Fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 Reuters 3/12 People watch from afar as as fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion at an ammuntion depot in Russia on August 5 Reuters 4/12 Flaming residue is scattered in an explosion at at an ammunition depot near the town of Achinsk in Russia on August 5 Reuters 5/12 An explosion at an ammunitions factory is seen from 10 miles away in the town of Achinsk, Russia on August 5 AP 6/12 Fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 Reuters 7/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot as the sun sets in the town of Achinsk, Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 8/12 An explosion at an ammunitions factory is seen from 10 miles away in the town of Achinsk, Russia on August 5 AP 9/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 10/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 11/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 12/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 1/12 An explosion at an ammunition depot near the town of Achinsk in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 2/12 Fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 Reuters 3/12 People watch from afar as as fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion at an ammuntion depot in Russia on August 5 Reuters 4/12 Flaming residue is scattered in an explosion at at an ammunition depot near the town of Achinsk in Russia on August 5 Reuters 5/12 An explosion at an ammunitions factory is seen from 10 miles away in the town of Achinsk, Russia on August 5 AP 6/12 Fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 Reuters 7/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot as the sun sets in the town of Achinsk, Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 8/12 An explosion at an ammunitions factory is seen from 10 miles away in the town of Achinsk, Russia on August 5 AP 9/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 10/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 11/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty 12/12 Smoke rises from the site of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia on August 5 AFP/Getty

On Tuesday, Russia's TASS news agency revealed medics who treated victims of the accident were sent to Moscow for medical examination.

The medics have signed an agreement promising not to divulge information about the incident, TASS cited an unnamed medical source as saying.

The Defence Ministry initially reported the explosion at the navy's testing range, near the village of Nyonoksa in northwestern Arkhangelsk, killed two people and injured six others.

State-controlled Rosatom then said over the weekend the blast also killed five of its workers and injured three others. It is not clear what the final death toll is.

The company said the victims were on a sea platform testing a rocket engine and were thrown into the sea by an explosion.

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Rosatom director Alexei Likhachev praised the victims as "true heroes" and the "pride of our country".

"Our further work on new weapons that we will certainly complete will be the best tribute to them," Mr Likhachev said during the funeral, according to Rosatom. "We will fulfil the Motherland's orders and fully protect its security."

Following the explosion, Russian authorities also closed part of Dvina Bay on the White Sea to shipping for a month, in what could be an attempt to prevent outsiders from seeing an operation to recover the missile debris.

The Severodvinsk city administration said the radiation level rose to 2 microsieverts per hour for about 30 minutes on Thursday before returning to the area's natural level of 0.1 microsieverts per hour. Emergency officials issued a warning to all workers to stay indoors and close the windows.

The radiation level of 2 microsieverts per hour is only slightly higher than the natural background radiation, which could vary between 0.1 and 0.4 microsieverts per hour. It is lower than the cosmic radiation that plane passengers are exposed to on longer haul flights.

Regional authorities have not reported any radiation increases after Thursday's spike.

Russian environmental groups have urged the government to release details of the radioactive leak, but officials offered no further details.

Neither the Defence Ministry nor Rosatom mentioned the type of rocket that exploded during the test, saying only that it had liquid propellant.

But Rosatom's mention of a "nuclear isotope power source" led some Russian media to conclude it was the Burevestnik (Petrel), a nuclear-powered cruise missile first revealed by Russian president Vladimir Putin in March 2018 during his state of the nation address along with other doomsday weapons.

While presenting the new missile, Mr Putin claimed it will have an unlimited range, allowing it to circle the globe unnoticed, bypassing the enemy's missile defence assets to strike undetected.

The president claimed the missile had successfully undergone the first tests, but observers were sceptical, arguing that such a weapon could be very difficult to handle and harmful to the environment.

Some reports suggested previous tests of the Burevestnik missile had been conducted on the barren Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya and the Kapustin Yar testing range in southern Russia before they were moved to Nyonoksa.

Moving the tests from unpopulated areas to a range close to a big city may reflect the military's increased confidence in the new weapon.

Additional reporting by agencies </s> MOSCOW — Regional authorities in northwestern Russia say the Russian military has advised residents of a village near a navy testing range to move out following a rocket explosion that killed five nuclear engineers.

The Interfax news agency reported Tuesday that the regional administration based in Severodvinsk said a notice from the military recommended the evacuation due to unspecified activities at the test range.

Officials offered no further details about the advisory for the village of Nyonoksa.

Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, has said the engineers were killed Thursday while they were testing a “nuclear isotope power source” for a rocket engine.

Local authorities in Severodvinsk, a city of 183,000, reported a brief spike in radiation levels after the explosion, spooking residents. Officials insist it didn’t pose any health hazards. </s> Russia's nuclear agency on Saturday said an explosion at an Arctic missile testing site had killed five of its staff after the military had put the toll at two.

Earlier, the authorities in a nearby city said the accident had caused a spike in radiation levels but the military denied this.

The accident on Thursday happened during testing of a liquid propellant rocket engine at a missile test site in the far northern Arkhangelsk region.

In a statement, Rosatom said the accident killed five of its staff and injured three, who suffered burns and other injuries.

Rosatom said its staff were providing engineering and technical support for the "isotope power source" of the missile engine.

The military had not described the accident as involving nuclear fuel.

The authorities have released few details of the accident at the Nyonoksa test site on the White Sea, used for testing missiles used in nuclear submarines and ships since the Soviet era.

The defence ministry initially said that six defence ministry employees and a developer were injured while two specialists died of their wounds.

The authorities in Severodvinsk, a city around 30 kilometres (19 miles) away from the test site, said on their website that automatic radiation detection sensors in the city "recorded a brief rise in radiation levels" on Thursday morning.

The post was later taken down.

An official responsible for civil defence, Valentin Magomedov, told TASS state news agency on Thursday that radiation levels rose to 2.0 microsieverts per hour for half an hour from 11:50 am (0850 GMT), before falling sharply.

He said this exceeded the permitted limit of 0.6 microsieverts, TASS reported.

Russian online media published unattributed video that journalists said showed a line of ambulances speeding through Moscow to take the injured to a centre that specialises in the treatment of radiation victims.

Rosatom said that the injured were being treated at a "specialised medical centre."

An expert from Moscow's Institute for Nuclear Research, Boris Zhuikov, told RBK independent news site that isotope power sources are mainly used in spacecraft and are not usually dangerous for people working with them.

"If they are damaged, people who are nearby could be hurt. Isotope sources use various types of fuel: plutonium, promethium or cerium," Zhuikov said.

The radioactivity levels involved are "absolutely not comparable with those during serious accidents at reactors," he added.

The news of the accident prompted residents of Severodvinsk to rush to pharmacies on Thursday to stock up on iodine, which can be taken to stop the thyroid gland absorbing radiation.

"People started to panic. Within a matter of an hour all the iodine and iodine-containing drugs were sold out," pharmacist Yelena Varinskaya told AFP.

The Soviet Union saw the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986, when the authorities sought to cover up the seriousness of the disaster. </s> Russia said Saturday an explosion at an Arctic missile testing site killed five nuclear agency staff and involved radioactive isotopes after a nearby city reported a spike in radiation levels

Moscow, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - APP - 10th Aug, 2019 ) :Russia said Saturday an explosion at an Arctic missile testing site killed five nuclear agency staff and involved radioactive isotopes after a nearby city reported a spike in radiation levels.

In a statement, Russia's nuclear agency Rosatom said the accident on Thursday at a secret military facility also left three staff with burns and other injuries.

The military had not previously described the accident as involving nuclear fuel and said radiation levels were normal afterwards.

But officials in the nearby city of Severodvinsk reported that radiation levels were briefly raised after the accident.

The accident occurred in the far northern Arkhangelsk region during testing of a liquid propellant jet engine. An explosion sparked a fire, killing two, the defence ministry said in a brief statement.

Rosatom said its staff were providing engineering and technical support for the "isotope power source" of the engine being tested.

The authorities have released few details of the accident at the Nyonoksa test site on the White Sea, used for testing missiles deployed in nuclear submarines and ships since the Soviet era.

The defence ministry said six defence ministry employees and a developer were injured while two "specialists" died of their wounds.

It was not immediately clear whether the death toll reported by Rosatom included the fatalities announced earlier by the defence ministry.

Russian state news agencies quoted a defence ministry source as saying both defence ministry and Rosatom employees were killed.

- Radiation spike - The authorities in Severodvinsk, 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the test site, said on their website on Thursday that automatic radiation detection sensors in the city "recorded a brief rise in radiation levels" around noon that day.

The post was later taken down and the defence ministry said that radiation levels were normal after the accident.

An official responsible for civil defence, Valentin Magomedov, told TASS state news agency on Thursday that radiation levels rose to 2.0 microsieverts per hour for half an hour from 11:50 am (0850 GMT), before falling sharply.

He said this exceeded the permitted limit of 0.6 microsieverts, TASS reported.

Greenpeace Russia published a letter from officials at a Moscow nuclear research centre giving the same figure, but saying higher radiation levels lasted for an hour. The officials said this did not present any significant risk to public health.

Russian online media published unattributed video that journalists said showed a line of ambulances speeding through Moscow to take the injured to a centre that specialises in the treatment of radiation victims.

Rosatom said that the injured were being treated at a "specialised medical centre".

- Iodine panic - An expert from Moscow's Institute for Nuclear Research, Boris Zhuikov, told RBK independent news site that isotope power sources are mainly used in spacecraft and are not usually dangerous for people working with them.

"If they are damaged, people who are nearby could be hurt. Isotope sources use various types of fuel: plutonium, promethium or cerium," Zhuikov said.

The radioactivity levels involved are "absolutely not comparable with those during serious accidents at reactors," he added.

The news of the accident prompted residents of Severodvinsk to rush to pharmacies on Thursday to stock up on iodine, which can be taken to stop the thyroid gland absorbing radiation.

"People started to panic. Within a matter of an hour all the iodine and iodine-containing drugs were sold out," pharmacist Yelena Varinskaya told AFP.

The Soviet Union saw the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986, when the authorities sought to cover up the seriousness of the disaster.
Five people are confirmed dead and three injured following an accidental rocket explosion on a naval test range near Severodvinsk, Russia on Thursday August 8th. The rocket used an experimental nuclear isotope liquid fuel source, causing a brief localized spike in radiation. 9500 nearby residents were evacuated.