Explosion rips through Russian lab housing smallpox, Ebola and plague
By Lucy Domachowski, News Reporter - The Daily Star
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A massive gas explosion has sparked a fire at a Russian lab that houses viruses ranging from smallpox to Ebola, authorities have said.
The State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology – usually known as Vector – has said a cylinder exploded in lab which is one of two places in the world that houses the smallpox disease which has been eradicated in the world.
Other highly lethal diseases that are stored there include Anthrax and Ebola.
Located in Koltsovo, in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, the site is thought to be where biological weapons have been made.
Firefighter and rescue teams responded to the explosion before it was realised what the possible implications could be.
Russian media have reported that the “the situation was quickly upgraded from an ordinary emergency to a major incident”.
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One worker suffered third-degree burns after the blast, which blew out the glass in the building.
Firefighters have been battling a blaze covering 30 square metres which engulfed the facility after the blast.
Russian authorities insisted that the room where the explosion occurred was holding no biohazardous substances and that no structural damage was caused.
The smallpox virus survives in two places on Earth: at Vector and at another high-security laboratory, at the US Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta.
In 2004, a researcher died at the laboratory complex after accidentally pricking herself with a needle carrying the Ebola virus.
