One Dead After Explosion At World’s Largest Uranium Enrichment Plant In Russia

He wrote on his Vkontakte page: ‘I appeal to the residents of Novouralsk with a request not to panic, not to spread messages through instant messengers. Take care of your loved ones, and explain to friends and family that there is no danger. The situation is under control’.

Yury Mineev, the Deputy General Director for Production of this enterprise also circulated the message posted by the press service of UEIP.

There is ‘no danger’ to the public

Tyumentsev also posted a video on his page in which he insisted: ‘There is no danger for the residents of Novouralsk and the personnel of the plant’, which Mineev reposted.

The E1.ru publication reported that: ‘more than 100 workers’ were taken to the Novouralsk hospital for examination.

‘Employees who were in the production room of the facility at the time of the incident were sent for a medical examination at the Central Medical Unit No. 31 of the FMBA of Russia in Novouralsk,” the press service of UEIP specified. ‘Most of them have already been sent home, nothing threatens their lives and health’, it added.

The facility is the largest uranium enrichment facility in the world

JSC Ural Electrochemical Plant is the world’s largest enterprise for the enrichment of uranium supplied to meet the needs for nuclear fuel of nuclear power plants and other nuclear power plants. The technological buildings of UEIP contain 48 per cent of the separation capacities of Russia.

Depleted uranium hexafluoride (uranium tails) is a by-product of processing uranium hexafluoride into enriched uranium. The compound is 1.7 times less radioactive than natural uranium and does not pose a threat to human health.