KRASNOYARSK. Feb 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The precise date when disposal of used fuel from the Kursk nuclear-powered submarine's reactors will start is unknown, but the work is expected to begin in summer 2002, State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Valery Lebedev told the press in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, on Thursday.
The work will start after the causes of the wreck have been studied in full, and that is expected to be finished no earlier than June, Lebedev said.
The deputy minister praised safety of reactors installed in Russian nuclear submarines. "Despite a very heavy blow and explosion the outer jacked of the reactor withstood the damages, all protection systems went off and there was no leakage whatsoever," he said.
The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea during exercises in August 2000 with 118 crewmembers aboard. In autumn 2001 it was lifted from the sea bed and towed to a dry dock in Roslyakovo, Murmansk region, where 82 bodies of crewmembers were recovered. A year earlier 12 other bodies were retrieved.