Russia said November 21 for the first time that it had detected a significant radiation spike in the Ural Mountains, close to a sprawling Soviet-era nuclear plant still remembered as the site of an accident 60 years ago. But it rejected suggestions that it was the source of a radioactive cloud that hovered over Europe.
The location of the spike — in the Chelyabinsk region near the border with Kazakhstan — has been identified by French and German nuclear safety institution as a potential source for a concentration of a radioactive isotope called ruthenium 106 detected in the air in late September above several European countries.
