K-159, a rust bucket of a Russian nuclear submarine, was being towed to a navy scrap yard late last month when it sprang a leak and went down in the Barents Sea. Nine sailors lost their lives--a fraction of the 118 who died when another Russian submarine, the Kursk, exploded and sank three years ago. But this latest sub disaster could have more serious consequences. A high-level Russian official tells TIME that K-159 "presents a threat more menacing than that of the Kursk," a state-of-the-art submarine whose reactors were much less likely to leak radioactive material before the sub could be...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
