MOSCOW, July 15 (DPA/EP) –
The Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom group of companies has reported that one person has been killed in an accident at a nuclear fuel factory in the Ural Mountains, some 1,600 kilometers east of Moscow.
“The incident has been located quickly and does not represent any risk to the population,” the Rosatom nuclear authority announced on its Telegram channel on Friday, adding that “no radioactivity has been released in the accident.”
Rosatom has added that a cylinder containing approximately one cubic meter of depleted uranium ruptured on Friday morning at the Urals Electrochemical Combination.
According to the report, a worker was fatally injured when the pressure dropped. The other workers were sent home after a medical examination. Their lives and health were not in danger, according to an official press release.
The paper has explained that depleted uranium has just under 60 percent of the radioactivity of natural uranium, and measurements have not revealed any increase in radiation levels. Officials are investigating how the depressurization occurred in the uranium container.
Ural Electrochemical Combination is located in the closed city of Novouralsk, 50 kilometers northwest of Yekaterinburg. The factory produced the first Soviet nuclear fuel. Today it is part of the Rosatom state nuclear authority, which also has a monopoly on the construction and operation of nuclear power plants in Russia.
