Sailor killed in submarine blast
A Russian seaman died in an accident on board a nuclear submarine at a Pacific base, a navy spokesman said today.
The sailor, Dmitry Koval, received fatal injuries when a pipe burst, Russian navy spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo said.
Dygalo said that the submarine was docked at Vilyuchinsk base on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East when the accident occurred.
It damaged one of the submarine’s sections, but it has remained fully operable. He didn’t say when the accident occurred or name the submarine.
Russia’s NTV television quoted Koval’s mother as saying that naval officials told her that her son was fatally injured in a gas explosion. Two other crewmen were injured, it said.
Captain Andrei Berezin, a naval officer who came to Koval’s native city of Krasnoyarsk to attend his burial, said Koval had “sacrificed himself to save the crew” but refused to name the submarine or give any details.
