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U.S. Consulate General, Vladivostok

April 24, 2002

Primorye Update: Wednesday, April 24, 2002

No. 189: Reporting

from Primorye

Naval Accident at Dunay Kills One Sailor, Wounds Three

On April 19, another accident occurred near the settlement of Dunay. On this occasion,

two naval officers and two sailors were severely burned when the poor-quality powder

cartridges they were unloading spontaneously ignited. On April 20, one of the wounded

sailors, a draftee, died of his injuries.

When queried about this latest incident,

Pacific Fleet Press Spokesman

Aleksandr Kosolapov had little to say

except that a criminal investigation had

been opened, since there was evidence

of negligence ("khalatnost") on the part

of the sailors who were unloading the

surplus cartridges.

This accident is the latest in a long line

of similar military mishaps that have

plagued the Russian Pacific Fleet, large

portions of which are based in

Konyushkovo Bay.1 In recent times, the

most serious accident took place on June 16, 2000, when an R-29 ballistic missile2

smashed into a ship after a cable snapped during unloading operations. Eight tons of

highly toxic oxidizer were released, producing a 1.6 million square foot toxic orange

cloud of nitric acid (see picture). The cloud drifted east along the shore toward

• Kosolapov Meets the Press

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Nakhodka, before dissipating six hours later. Fortunately for the 628,000 residents of

Vladivostok, the wind was blowing away from the city at the time of the accident, an

unusual situation for

that time of year. If the

winds had been blowing

normally, the entire city

would have been

engulfed in a cloud of

nitric acid for over five

hours, posing the risk of

serious injury to

thousands of residents.

As it was, the damage

was certainly bad

enough. Twenty-one

people were hurt in the

accident, mostly sailors

and civilian workers on

the site, and nineteen

were hospitalized. Fishing and swimming were banned by the nearby town of Bolshoy

Kamen for several days following the accident. At the time, the Ministry of Emergency

Situations reported that new safety measures would be put into place to prevent future

accidents. Evidently, there is some work on that particular project that remains to be

done.

• The Accident in Konyushkovo Bay, June 16, 2000

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Note 1. For background on

previous mishaps and disasters that

have occurred at naval facilities

near Dunay, see E-Gram Nos. 179

(Navy Corruption Continues – FSB

Prevents Sale of Explosives to OC

Groups) and 163 (Chazhma:

Primorye’s “Chernobyl” Slowly

Being Cleaned Up).

Note 2. The R-29 (NATO

designation SS-N-8 SAWFLY) was

the first Soviet sea-based ICBM.

Deployed on Delta-class

submarines beginning in 1973, the

missile's long range allowed Soviet

submarines to conduct their patrols in the marginal ice seas of the Soviet arctic littoral,

including the Norwegian and Barents seas. Consequently, Soviet submarines no longer

needed to pass through Western SOSUS sonar

barriers to come within range their targets.

Deployed close to home, they could be protected in

"bastions" by the rest of the Soviet Navy. The R-29

is a two-stage missile with storable liquid- propellant, and carries a single warhead. With a

launch weight of 33.3 tons the R-29 missile is

capable of delivering a 1,100-kilogram reentry

vehicle to a maximum range of 7800 kilometers.

According to Western sources, the R-29 warhead is

in the 0.6 to 1.5 Megaton range, and has a CEP

(Circular Error Probability) of 0.5 nautical miles. (Source: Federation of American

Scientists Website "Weapons of Mass Destruction around the World." For additional

information, go to the following link: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/r- 29.htm). The R-29 missile involved in the Konyushkovo Bay accident was reportedly

being prepared for dismantlement after being removed from a Delta-Class submarine

based in Kamchatka.

• Submarines in Konyushkovo Bay

• The SS-N-8 SAWFLY