Health and safety fears send Russian nuclear containership to scrap yard

RUSSIA's only nuclear-powered containership will be scrapped following a decade of lying idle at Atomflot base outside Murmansk.

The 1,328-TEU ice breaking Sevmorput, built by Zaliv shipyard in Kerch, Ukraine, entered service in 1988, but ran into problems when port restrictions for nuclear-powered vessels confined it to a Murmansk-Yenisey along the Dudinkal River.

The 260-metre, 61,000 dwt Sevmorput was even denied entry to four Soviet ports .Authorities in Nakhodka, Vostochny, Magadan and Vladivostok refused to accept the two-month-old ship into their ports due to popular protests under the then recent of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster a force in the popular imagination.

Dockers refused to load or unload any cargo or provide any port services due to fears of radiation leakage.

The ship is one of three nuclear-powered commercial ships for cargo purposes, which were unsuccessful because of safety concerns, reported Lloyds Loading List.