MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Workers finished draining water from the dry dock they filled to extinguish a fire on a Russian nuclear submarine in the country’s north, a spokesman from the shipbuilding company that was repairing the submarine told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
The Orel caught fire on Tuesday after the insulation inside the bulkheads was sparked by what is believed to have been haphazard welding operations. The fire was finally extinguished by flooding the dry dock.
At the time of ignition, the submarine was on a scheduled overhaul at the shipyard Zvezdochka, located in a delta flowing into the Barents Sea. The total area of the fire was estimated at about 47.8 square yards.
The damage inflicted to the submarine during the fire was insignificant, according to the Russian United Shipbuilding Corporation. The Orel will return to the military service on schedule, in the last quarter of 2016.
The Russian Investigative Committee launched an inspection into the cause of the blaze. There were no victims of the incident.
