UPDATE: Investigators initiate case against Norilsk head over fuel spill

(Provides new data in headline, lede, paragraph 2)

MOSCOW/NOVOSIBIRSK/KRASNOYARSK, Jun 11 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Investigative Committee has initiated a negligence criminal case against head of the city of Norilsk Rinat Akhmetchin over a recent diesel fuel spill at the TETs-3 power plant, the authority’s official representative Svetlana Petrenko said on Thursday.

“A criminal case has been initiated over negligence of Rinat Akhmetchin, the head of the city of Norilsk in the Krasnoyarsk Region, who failed to execute his duties after the emergency, resulting from a spill of oil products in the volume of at least 21,163 cubic meters from a diesel tank,” she said.

The Emergency Ministry said earlier that rescuers had collected 12,530 cubic meters of fuel-water mixture at the site of in Norilsk.

“Over the past day, 3,574 cubic meters of the fuel-water mixture were collected by joint efforts, which is on a cumulative total of 12,530 cubic meters,” the spokesperson for the ministry said.

Specialists have transported around 37,736 tonnes of contaminated soil to an industrial dump after the accident, the ministry also said.

A fuel tank at Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company lost pressure on May 29 and leaked out fuel and lubricants into the river Ambarnaya, causing a fire.

A spokesperson for Norilsk Nickel, the world’s top nickel producer and the core enterprise in the region, blamed warming of the permafrost, which moved supports under the tank.

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