Russian Nuke Plant Blast Kills One

2 Also Hurt As Molten Metal Spurts; Sparks Calls For Regulation

(AP)  Hundreds of pounds of molten metal splashed from a smelter at a Russian nuclear power plant, killing one worker and severely injuring two others, a scientist and the federal nuclear agency said Friday. The accident did not affect reactors, the agency said.

The Rosenergoatom agency said radiation levels remained normal as the reactor inside the Leningrad nuclear plant was being repaired. Rosenergoatom initially called Thursday's incident an explosion in a press statement, then hours later changed course and called it a "splash."

A plant spokesman said the accident was caused by violations of technical and production rules.

The mishap occurred at the plant in the closed nuclear town of Sosnovy Bor, 50 miles west of the northern city of St. Petersburg. The smelter is operated by Ekomet-S, a company reprocessing scrap metal.

Thursday's accident shone a spotlight on what environmentalists called uncontrolled operations at Russian nuclear sites.

"The enterprise ... functions illegally because there was no mandatory (state) environmental impact assessment on its construction," Dmitry Artamonov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace, told The Associated Press.

He said Greenpeace had complained against Ekomet-S to the Sosnovy Bor prosecutors' office, but the office took no action.

The nuclear plant has four units, or reactors, in all. Rosenergoatom said the smelter was on the grounds of the plant's second unit, and plant spokesman Sergei Averyanov said it was about a half-mile from the reactor.

Oleg Bodrov, a physicist who heads the Green World ecological group in Sosnovy Bor, said the reactor was only 700 yards from the smelter, which is about 50 yards from a covered liquid radioactive waste pond.

A 33-year-old worker died of his injuries Friday morning, and two others were injured, Yuri Lameko, chief doctor of the Sosnovy Bor hospital, told the AP.

"There were no violations of safety levels and operating conditions of the energy units of the Leningrad nuclear plant," Rosenergoatom said in a statement.

The second unit had been shut down for planned major repairs in July, it said.

Averyanov said molten metal spurt out of the smelter. Besides scrap metal from the plant, Ekomet-S reprocesses metal from Russian nuclear submarines and disassembled oil and gas pipelines from the Russian Far North, Bodrov said.

Averyanov said the metal reprocessed Thursday was clear of radiation, and he blamed the accident on violations of technical and production rules.

Bodrov said Ekomet-S workers told him more than 2 tons of molten metal were in the smelter at the time of the accident, and several hundred pounds splashed out for unknown reasons.