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No Threat of Radioactive Leakage from Kursk: Deputy PM
There will be no threat of radioactive leakage within the next ten years from the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk that currently lies at the bottom of the Barents Sea, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Thursday, November 30.
Meanwhile, he stressed the need to remove the sub, saying "a submarine with a nuclear reactor should not lie in the waters of the Barents Sea, where fish are caught."
The removal will eliminate worldwide concern about the ecological condition of the Barents Sea, he added.
Not only Russians but also NATO experts are following radiation levels in the Kursk wreckage area. At present, radiation levels are within the natural limits, according to an Inter-fax report.
The submarine will be lifted from the Barents Sea in the summer of 2001. The operation, expected to cost no more than US$80 million, will begin by the end of 2000, Klebanov said.
Klebanov also said Moscow had spent over 6 million dollars on retrieving the bodies of the crew aboard Kursk, with the help of a Norwegian vessel, Regalia.
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