A nuclear submarine base in the remote Far East of Russia sustained minor damage last week after the region was rocked by one of the strongest earthquakes in decades, satellite imagery suggests.
A floating pier at the Rybachiy submarine base, one of the key sites for Russia’s Pacific Fleet on the Kamchatka peninsula, appeared to have been badly damaged, according to satellite images taken on Sunday by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company. One section of the pier appeared to be detached from its mooring.
No other major damage is visible, and several vessels, including five submarines, were seen moored at piers nearby. There has been no official announcement about damage at the base, and the Russian media has said nothing on the subject. International bodies monitoring nuclear sites have not reported heightened radiation levels in the area.
Some of Rybachiy’s floating piers are brand-new: At least two new piers have been commissioned and installed at the base since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, according to the military.
The base, built during Soviet times, was set up in a cove in order to protect the vessels from the high waves and storms of the open sea just a few miles away.
Although several piers at Rybachiy appear to be intact, one showed signs of damage from tsunami waves caused by the earthquake.
“This is unlikely to affect the battle readiness of the base — and repairs for the pier are probably not going to be costly,” the Conflict Intelligence Team, a research group that uses open-source data to study the Russian military, told The New York Times in response to a request for an assessment.
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Far East of Russia on Wednesday, rattling local residents, sending huge tsunami waves toward the Pacific Coast and setting off alerts across the world. The epicenter of the earthquake was about 80 miles away from Rybachiy.
The base is situated on the same bay as the regional capital of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, which suffered minor damage.
Tsunami waves did not reach the city itself but were sighted in the open sea a few miles away.
The submarine base and the town of Rybachiy are high-security sites where public access is restricted.
Russia this summer moved some of its military assets farther east after a daring Ukrainian drone attack launched from within Russia hit several high-profile targets thousands of miles away from the frontline, including an airfield in eastern Siberia.
Kamchatka was battered last week with a series of seismic events, including a major earthquake and its aftershocks as well as volcano eruptions.
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