Nuclear accidentsData May Point to Second Blast at Russian Test Site

Published 23 August 2019

Researchers at a Norwegian institute believe that there may have been two explosions, not one, at the Russian naval test site on the White Sea earlier this month, an incident that killed at least five people and raised new questions about Russia’s weapons research.

Researchers at a Norwegian institute believe that there may have been two explosions, not one, at the Russian naval test site on the White Sea earlier this month, an incident that killed at least five people and raised new questions about Russia’s weapons research.

The conclusions were published on August 14 by the Norsar Research Institute, based on seismographic and acoustic readings taken the day of the deadly incident, but had gone largely unnoticed.

Anne Lycke, the institute’s chief executive, told RFE/RL in an interview on August 23 that the institute’s monitoring stations first detected seismographic readings on August 8 at around 9 a.m. local time in Arkhangelsk, a major city on the White Sea.

The readings, she said, pointed to an explosion that occurred somewhere close to the Earth’s surface, either on ground or on water.

Around two hours later, at 11 a.m., a different sensor designed to pick up infrasound, or low-frequency sound, registered another, different acoustic event, Lycke said.

Researchers concluded that that was likely an explosion that occurred in the air, some height above the ground, she said.

“Yes, it appears that two explosions took place, based on our findings,” Lycke said.

The institute’s findings, which were first reported by the newspaper Afternposten on August 22, add to a growing body of publicly available evidence about the August 8 incident that took place at the Nyonoksa naval test site, a range on the White Sea that has been used for decades by Soviet and Russian military planners.

Contradictory Information
Russian authorities have released scattered and sometimes contradictory information about the mishap, which has added to anger among Russians about what exactly happened and whether there was any danger.