Murmansk wreck was pronounced safe and free from radioactivity by government inspectors. However, equipment from the ship caused alarm when it triggered Geiger counters. After the wreck the Murmansk was being towed to India to be broken up, when it broke loose from its tow and ended on the rocks outside the tiny hamlet of Sørvær in Finnmark County in 1994.
After inspection the safety and environmental agencies have pronounced the wreck safe and free of radioactivity. However when equipment taken from the wreck was being checked to see if it could be recycled, some of it was found to be radioactive after all. Trond Lore, who heads Eurovironment, a firm that recycles electronic equipment, told that they found a zero tolerance for radioactivity.
According to the Russian government it is a minor event nothing big to panic. Ole Reistad at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, opined that they have inspected the equipment and got relatively low readings. Nevertheless they were strong enough for it to be unwise for people to come into direct contact with the material. But Olaf Braastad of the environmental pressure group Bellona, calls the event an environmental scandal. He added that not only is the cruiser, which lies in the middle of a tourist paradise, full of environmentally hazardous chemicals, it turns out that it contains radioactive material as well.
