NIZHNY NOVGOROD. Aug 12 (Interfax) - The directorate of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center has offered condolences over the deaths of its employees in the incident at a military test range outside Arkhangelsk.
"Yes, the tragedy has occurred. The blast claimed the lives of our five fellow employees. Three are in hospital. They sustained moderately severe injuries, mainly bone fractures. Some of them underwent surgeries. Their lives are not endangered," the center's director Valentin Kostyukov said.
Kostyukov's video address was posted on the sarov.info local website on Sunday evening.
"The death of our employees is a bitter loss for the whole institute, for the enterprise, and for the Rusatom state corporation," the director of the center said.
"Test engineers, who are engaged in this kind of activity, are national heroes. [...] All ideas and all thoughts are going through them," he added.
Kostyukov offered condolences to the families of the victims and noted that the center's directorate met with their families.
"The work, which has been done in the White Sea, we have been preparing for that quite seriously over about a year," Kostyukov said.
"Relevant stands were created. People underwent qualification tests and quite a serious training. Equipment, programs and methods were developed. It looks like everything should have been implemented. However, the situation has unfortunately become an emergency. Relevant conclusions will be made by the [fact-finding] commission," he said.
Employees of the center "have been repeatedly engaged in similar works and have always obtained the positive result," Kostyukov said.
"But today the chain of tragic accidents, uncertainties, which were uncovered, has occurred, though according to the preliminary analysis we see that they were fighting for taking the situation under control. But unfortunately they failed to do so today," the director of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center said.
"We will provide the one-time aid to their families. [...] We submitted the documents for decoration to Rusatom, while Rusatom - to the presidential executive office. We will solemnly unveil a monument to test engineers in a year," he added.
At the end of the video address the names of the demised employees were revealed: Alexei Vyushin, Yevgeny Koratayev, Vyacheslav Lipshev, Sergei Pichugin, and Vladislav Yanovsky.
The Russian state corporation Rusatom said on Saturday that an explosion at a test range in the Arkhangelsk region had left five Rusatom employees dead, and another three injured with burns of various severity. All the injured are now in a specialized medical clinic.
On August 8, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed that an accident had occurred at a range in the Arkhangelsk region.