Fire at Moscow Nuclear institute, Russia says no risk | Reuters

UPDATE: Russian power plant explodes and catches fire
(Moscow/St. Petersburg, Russia) Dashcam and CCTV

There was no risk of a radiation leak after a fire broke out at a Moscow nuclear research centre housing a non-operational 60-year-old atomic reactor on Sunday, said officials, but Greenpeace Russia expressed serious concern about the incident.

The fire broke out early on Sunday in a part of the Alikhanov Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics in southwestern Moscow that contains a research collider, institute officials said in a statement on its website.

There were no radiation sources in the area of the collider, which had been shut off on December 25, and no danger of a radiation leak, the statement said. It said personnel were evacuated and nobody was hurt.

"Grey smoke rose above the institute, which is encircled by a wall, and an acrid smell filled the air. Some 30 emergency vehicles, including fire trucks and ambulances, stood inside and outside the main gate", witnesses said
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Several phone calls to the institute went unanswered.

The fire was in a basement area, said Sergei Vlasov, spokesman for the Moscow branch of the Emergencies Ministry.

Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia's state nuclear agency Rosatom, said there were no open flames, only smoke that came from an area housing power cables and could not affect any nuclear materials at the institute.

"This case poses no threat to fissile materials," said Novikov, adding firefighters were pumping foam into the affected area. He said the institute's heavy-water research reactor was no longer operational.

SAFETY CONCERNS

A Greenpeace Russia official said the incident was potentially very dangerous.