The icebreaker Viktor Chernomyrdin has been waylaid for years by other problems, and the Tuesday fire is likely to add to its woes.
- A fire broke out aboard an under-construction icebreaker in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
- The flames aboard the Viktor Chernomyrdin were extinguished in a few hours.
- But the accident is the latest in a string of Russian shipyard incidents this year.
A fire aboard the under-construction Russian icebreaker Viktor Chernomyrdin engulfed a significant portion of the ship and injured at least two people before it was extinguished on Tuesday, according to Russian media reports.
The fire-alarm call came in around 7 p.m. Moscow time, or around 11 a.m. EST. Within three hours, it had reportedly been put out.
"At [9:10 p.m.] Moscow time it was announced that the blaze was contained and all open fire sources were put out at an area of 300 square meters," a spokesperson for the Russian emergencies ministry told state-media outlet Tass. "At [10:15 p.m.] Moscow time, the fire was completely extinguished."
Construction on the Chernomyrdin began in December 2012. The diesel-electric-powered vessel was expected to be the most powerful nonnuclear icebreaker in the world, according to Tass, and was supposed to operate on the Northern Sea Route, which traverses the Arctic.
The Chernomyrdin has five decks, and the fire consumed parts of the third and fourth. The blaze affected a 300-square-meter area of the ship, out of a total of 1,200 square meters. According to Tass, "electrical wiring, equipment, and wall panels in technical areas" were damaged by the fire.
One of the people injured was hospitalized. The other was treated by doctors on-site, Tass reported, adding that 110 people and 24 pieces of equipment were involved in fighting the fire.
As noted by The Drive, which first spotted reports of the fire, the Chernomyrdin has been waylaid by budget and schedule problems.
The ship was supposed to be delivered 2015. In April 2016, an official from Russia's state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation said it would be delivered that year. In 2017, the ship was moved to Admiralty Shipyard in St. Petersburg, which is known for building warships, with the goal of speeding up construction.
Reports in January said delivery was expected by autumn 2018 — a date likely to be pushed back. The extent and impact of the damage are not yet clear, but fires can cripple ships.
In 2013, the US Navy decided to scrap a nuclear-powered attack submarine that had been severely damaged in a fire set by an arsonist, rather than spend $700 million to repair it.
The Chernomyrdin fire is only Russia's latest shipyard accident.
A power-supply disruption on the PD-50 dry dock caused the massive 80,000-ton structure to sink at the 82nd Repair Shipyard near Severodvinsk in northwest Russia.
The Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia's only aircraft carrier, was aboard the dry dock at the time. The collapse of the dry dock brought down with it a crane, which tore a 200-square-foot hole in the side of the ship above the waterline.
The Kuznetsov was undergoing an overhaul expected to be completed in 2021, but Russian officials have admitted there is no viable replacement for the PD-50, which could take six months to a year to fix.
The absence of a suitable dry dock for the Kuznetsov leaves the Russian navy flagship's future in doubt.
The Chernomyrdin is also not the first fire-related accident at a Russian shipyard this year. In January, video emerged of thick, black smoke spewing from the water near several docked Kilo-class submarines at Vladivostok, home of Russia's Pacific fleet.
Russian officials said at the time that the fire was part of "damage control exercises," which many saw as a dubious explanation considering the intensity of the blaze.
A month later, a fire sent smoke gushing from the deck of the destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov while it was in port at Vladivostok. Despite a considerable amount of smoke, a shipyard representative said there was no significant damage.
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