Soviets Acknowledge Blast, Deny Link to Missile

The Soviet Union on Wednesday acknowledged Western reports that there was an explosion at one of its chemical factories last week but denied U.S. reports that the blast occurred at a plant that makes rocket fuel used for a new long-range nuclear missile.

Gennady I. Gerasimov, Foreign Ministry spokesman, said three people were killed and five injured in the explosion on May 12 in a storage area of the plant at Pavlograd, about 500 miles southwest of Moscow in the Ukraine.

He said the chemicals involved were explosives used in civilian industry, not fuel for the new SS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile.

U.S. officials in Washington said Tuesday that the Pavlograd plant is also the sole facility for making the main rocket motors for the SS-24. Deployment of the SS-24, which carries 10 warheads and can be launched from underground silos or rail cars, began last year.

The officials said the Soviets probably would not be able to resume SS-24 production for at least six months.

Highly Automated Plant

In a telephone interview, Gerasimov said that he does not know whether the plant made either the motors or fuel for them. He said that casualties were minimized in the early-morning blast because the storage area was highly automated.

A brief report by the Tass news agency’s English-language service said 12 tons of “quarry powder” blew up and said the cause of the blast was being investigated. Its Russian-language report identified the material as ammonite and said it exploded in a loading area of an internal warehouse at the Pavlogradsky Chemical Factory.

According to the Russian-language Tass report, the factory makes industrial explosive materials. It identified them as rock ammonium, alumotol and other ammonia products.

The U.S. Defense Department said the explosion “destroyed several buildings at a Soviet propellant plant in Pavlograd.”

‘It’s Not Catastrophic’

An American source in Washington said the explosion “sure tore that plant up,” but Gerasimov said it did not cause major damage.

“It’s not catastrophic,” he told reporters.

One Washington source said U.S. spy satellites detected the explosion.

Pavlograd is a city of 122,000 people about 30 miles east of Dnepropetrovsk, a major industrial center. Gerasimov said there was no evacuation of the area after the explosion.

Tass reported that, nine hours after the explosion, Mayor I.N. Prikhodko assured residents over the local radio station there was no danger to health or the environment. A regional health official repeated the message the next day, the agency said.