Russian nuclear submarine: Norway finds big radiation leak | Hacker News Reader

Russian nuclear submarine: Norway finds big radiation leak

bbc.com

34 pointsherendin215 comments

In case of misunderstanding, the sub is K-278, the big nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered Komsomolets, which was lost at 1680 meters in 1989. It isn't the smaller sub that recently had an accident, also in the Barents Sea, but did not sink.

I believe the smaller one was called the Kursk

Actually, the Kursk sank in 2000 and was quite a bit larger than the sub mentioned in the article. Also the Kursk disaster was deadlier than all aforementioned submarine accidents.

> The Komsomolets sank in the Norwegian Sea in 1989 after a fire on board killed 42 sailors.

No, the smaller, more recent one that was mentioned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster

The Kursk sank.

This is the one, I think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Losharik

Different sub.

Title 'Big radiation leak'

Body 'nothing alarming'

Thanks BBC.

The radiation level is '800,000 times higher than normal'. Objectively speaking, that's a big leak. It's just not anywhere that important.

Not if normal is close to zero.

"Homicide rates tripled in the last year!" could easily mean 3 people got killed when last year was one. Never trust a proportional statement when the baseline is not provided.

In this case, a pipe was measured to be leaking 800 becquerels per lite. One Curie is 37 trillion becquerels. It's 46 millionths of a Curie. A fatal dose is usually measured in the thousandths of a Curie. This is incredibly benign, and probably drops to difficult-to-detect levels 100 meters from the submarine.

Really, this article strikes me as low effort at best, fear mongering at worst.

After reading your comment and some other articles, you're right.

I guess I was just shocked by the relative difference even if it was fairly meaningless in reality.

The article is well written, and easy to understand. FTA:

> Norway has found a radiation level 800,000 times higher than normal at the wreck of a Russian navy submarine.

>(Snip)

> A sample showed radioactive caesium leaking from a ventilation pipe, but researchers said it was "not alarming", as the Arctic water quickly diluted it.

Environmental degradation is the story of death by a thousand cuts.

Aren't those nuclear missles technology that should be recovered or guarded?

At a mile below the surface, it's probably safer (from human malicious actors) there than pretty much anywhere in Russia.

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