Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Jack Rosenfeld- Fire Breaks Out on Russian Nuclear Submarine


The article I read from Yahoo.com called “Fire Breaks Out on Russian Nuclear Submarine” was truly fascinating. Early in the morning of Monday September 16th, 2013, a Russian submarine powered by nuclear reactors and known to be carrying nuclear missiles caught fire in the Sea of Japan near Vladivostok, Russia. An official of the Russian fleet commented on the incident and claimed the nuclear engines were shut down and in safe condition and also that on this voyage there were no missiles aboard the submarine. After the fire, it was a scan was conducted and it was determined that there were no high radiation levels and no radioactivity had contaminated the sea.
As I read this article, various things jumped out at me. One thing that caught me off guard was the comments made by the Russian Officials. It makes sense that the nuclear reactors were shut off in the event of a fire but what is the likelihood a ship that usually carries up to twenty-four nuclear missiles just so happened to not be carrying any missiles at all? Highly unlikely, considering multiple anonymous reports claimed that there were in fact a multitude of missiles on the submarine at the time of the fire. Another thing that fascinated me about this article was the tone it was written in, there was absolutely no concern about the drastic effects that this disaster could have on the environment. If in fact there was anywhere near twenty-four missiles on the ship, the effects could have been worse than those of the BP oil spill. Overall I felt the article to be very informational and personally very interesting. 

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