A major fire aboard a docked Russian nuclear submarine that injured seven crew members with toxic fumes and left others stuck inside the vessel appeared to be brought under control today.
The blaze had caused no radiation leaks, officials said.
The fire began at an Arctic shipyard where the submarine Yekaterinburg was in dry-dock.
Russian state television showed the rubber-coated hull of the submarine still smouldering today, with firefighters gathering around it and some standing on top to douse it with water.
An unspecified number of crew have remained inside the submarine, the Defence Ministry said.
A spokesman insisted there was no danger of fire spreading inside the sub and said the crew has reported that the conditions on board have remained normal.
It was unclear whether the crew were trapped there or ordered to stay inside.
The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority said it has received information from both authorities in Russia that there was no radioactive leak.
However, the governor in Finnmark, Norway's north-eastern province that borders Russia's Murmansk Oblast, said he was disappointed with Russia's response. "There have been problems to get clear information from the Russian side," Gunnar Kjoennoey said.
Russia's military says the blaze started on wooden scaffolding and then engulfed the sub's outer hull. The vessel's nuclear reactor had been shut down and its nuclear-tipped missiles and other weapons had been unloaded before the repairs.
Toxic fumes from the blaze had spread to the town of Roslyakovo where the shipyard is located, but officials said there was no need to evacuate local residents.
It would take a few more hours to fully extinguish the smouldering outer hull, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
He said seven members of the submarine crew have been taken to hospital after inhaling poisonous carbon monoxide fumes from the fire.
The Yekaterinburg is a Delta-IV-class nuclear-powered submarine that normally carries 16 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, Gen Nikolai Makarov, led a team of military officials to Roslyakovo to oversee the rescue efforts.
Military prosecutors have launched an investigation into a possible breach of safety regulations that led to the fire.
President Dmitry Medvedev summoned top Cabinet officials to report on the situation and demand a punishment for any culprits.
The Russian navy suffered its worst accident in August 2000, when the Kursk nuclear submarine exploded and sank during naval manoeuvres, killing all 118 crew members aboard.
A 2008 accident at the Nerpa nuclear-powered submarine killed 20 Russian seamen and injured 21 others when its fire-extinguishing system activated in error and spewed suffocating gas.