YEKATERINBURG, July 14 Most of the employees of the Ural Electrochemical Plant (UEIP), who were in the workshop where the cylinder with depleted uranium hexafluoride was depressurized, after a medical examination released home, according to the press service of the enterprise.
As stated by «Rosatom», on Friday morning at UEIP in the closed room of the shop there was a depressurization of a cubic meter cylinder with depleted uranium hexafluoride. The mechanic who received a mechanical injury died, UEIP reported.
“The rest of the workers who were in the production room of the shop at the time of the incident were sent for a medical examination at the Central Medical Unit No. 31 of the Novouralsk FMBA of Russia. Most of them have already been sent home, nothing threatens their lives and health,” the report says. message.
Depleted uranium hexafluoride, a by-product of processing uranium hexafluoride into enriched uranium, is 1.7 times less radioactive than natural uranium and poses no threat to human health.
JSC UEIP is the world's largest enterprise for the enrichment of uranium supplied to meet the needs for nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants and other nuclear power plants, which is part of Rosatom. Currently, 48% of the separation capacities of Russia are concentrated in the technological buildings of UEIP.