Swedish researchers will assess the environmental damage due to the emergency at Nord Stream

MOSCOW, 3 Oct — PRIME. A team of specialists from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden went to the scene of an emergency on the Nord Stream in the Baltic Sea to assess the environmental damage as a result of this incident, according to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

According to the publication, a team of 11 specialists began the expedition on Sunday morning on the research vessel Skagerak. At the same time, already on Monday at noon, the team arrived in the area of ​​​​the city of Bornholm, near which there were leaks from gas pipelines, and set to work. Researchers will have to find out in which places the methane that ended up in the sea due to the emergency dissolved in the water and where the water masses containing methane move.

“They won’t go to the leak itself until they have done a systematic analysis of the water masses on their way to it. They will start by collecting samples west of the leak,” Thomas Dahlgren, a marine biologist at the University of Gothenburg, said in a statement.

According to the newspaper, the team includes experts in chemical and physical oceanography, microbiology, as well as a zooplantologist and a technical specialist.

It is noted that the preliminary results of the study will be ready at the end of this week.

Last Monday, terrorist attacks took place simultaneously on two Russian gas export pipelines to Europe. Germany, Denmark and Sweden do not rule out targeted sabotage. The Russian side officially requested information from Denmark about the emergency at Nord Stream as soon as the incident became known. The Danish authorities notified the Russian Federation about the explosions at the site of the gas leak. The Nord Stream operator Nord Stream AG reported that the state of emergency on gas pipelines is unprecedented and it is impossible to estimate the repair time.