MOSCOW, (PNA/RIA Novosti) — The director of a Far Eastern shipyard, where a nuclear submarine recently caught fire during maintenance operations, will lose his post next week.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of the defense sector, said on Friday he “gave instructions” to relieve the director of the Zvezda shipyard, Vladimir Averin, of his duties.
“The instructions must be fulfilled on Monday,” he said.
On September 16, rubber insulation and old paint inside the K-150 Tomsk nuclear-powered submarine’s main ballast tanks started burning during welding operations, filling the inside compartments with smoke.
The defense ministry later said that there was no open fire at the submarine and that 15 servicemen suffered from smoke inhalation.
This is not the first time a Russian submarine catches fire during maintenance works. In 2011, a fire also rendered unusable a K-84 Ekaterinburg Russian nuclear submarine, which remains in repair.
The submarine was being repaired in a dry dock at the Roslyakovo shipyard outside the north-western city of Murmansk when wooden scaffolding next to it caught fire and the flames spread to the craft on December 29, 2011. Nobody was killed in the blaze which raged on for hours.