Russia submarine fire "totally extinguished"

Russia said on Friday it had doused a raging blaze aboard a  nuclear submarine after nearly a full day and night, by partially submerging the vessel after battling the flames with water from helicopters and tug boats.   

There was no radiation leak and crew inside the submarine were monitoring the stricken vessel's nuclear reactors which had been shut down, Russian officials said.   

At least nine people were injured fighting the flames which witnesses quoted by local media said rose 10 metres (30 feet) above the Yekaterinburg submarine at the navy ship yard in the Murmansk region of northern Russia.  

"The fire on the submarine has been totally extinguished," Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu told officials leading the firefighting effort, more than twenty hours after the blaze began on Thursday afternoon at 1220 GMT.   

His remarks were reported by Interfax news agency.   

Emergency officials decided to partially submerge the 18,200-tonne Yekaterinburg submarine at the Roslyakovo dock, one of the main dockyards of Russia's Northern Fleet, 1,500 km (900 miles) north of Moscow, after hours of fighting the fire.   

Russia's nuclear submarine fleet, once the pride of the Soviet Union's mighty armed forces, has been involved in a host of disasters including the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine in 2000 with the loss of all 118 people on board.   

Official statements were vague, but the blaze is believed to have started when wooden scaffolding caught fire during welding repairs to the the 167-metre (550 feet) Yekaterinburg submarine, which had been hoisted into a dry dock.   

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation into the incident, the Kremlin said.

Reuters