IjONDON. Apr 3 The Soviet navy dumped huge quantities of radioactive waste Into the sea, I said an official report whose publication here Friday quickly provoked * flurry of protest from Japan, reports AFP

I The report, compiled by the Russian Presidents environmental adviser

' Alexander Yablokov and released here by the ecological organisation Greenpeace. said that from 1966 to 1991 the navy dumped 18 decommissioned nuclear reactors and 13 ISO containers of radioactive waste Into the ocean, much of II in the Sea of Japan

fhe radiation emitted by this seafloor waste amount* to 2 3 million curies. about twice that released by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident In Ukraine, the Yablokov report •atd

I While two of the nuclear reactors and 2.640 ruble metre* of solid waste wen feUtooncd in the Sea of Japan, the nevy also dumped

1 waste into the Pacific. Atlantic and Indian

ocean s according to the report.

Seven Nuclear reactors still containing nuclear fuel dumped in the sea north of Russia were an undoubted ’threat" to the environment, Russia * Deputy Environment Minister Alexei Poryadin said Friday In Moscow

The reactors were dumped In the Kara Sea near the Novaya Zemlya Islands during test Ing of under-sea nuclear weapon* and the Lenin Ice-breaker *hlp, 1TAR Tass news agency quoted Poryadin as saying

In 1959. some 600 cubic meters of low level nuclear waste were jettisoned In the While Sea and 100 cubic meters of liquid nuclear waste were abandoned tn the Gulf of Finland tn I960 by the ice-breaker Lenin.

Between 1959 and 1992. liquid radioactive waste totalling 20,600 curies and solid waste totalling 2.3 million curie* were dumped tn the seas north ot Russia

Radioactivity from nuclear waste Is currrnlly 324,000 curies In the Kara Sea. 12,59 3

curie* tn the Barents Sea. 100 curies tn the White Sea. 0.2 curies tn the Baltic and

18.565 curies on Russia's pacific shores.

Il AR Tass said a Russian government com-mlssion had drawn up a "white paper" on the subject

We want to investigate the matter because It* against humanity. Japanese Prime Minister Kilchi Miyazawa said.

Its absurd.' added foreign minister Mlehto Watanabe We can't accept that nuclear waste Is dumped tn the sea."

A Greenpeace spokesman said the group had obtained a copy of the Yablokov report, which was submitted to President Boris Yeltsin In February.

Greenpeace said Russia faced a "waste night mare' in needing to find a place lor the spent fuel of Ils 235 nuclear-driven ships and submarines Each year these vessel produce 20.000 cubic metre* of liquid waste and 6 000 cubic metre* of »olid

waste.

The environmental group praised the "frankness' of Yablokov's report, nothing that It has provided details which would never have been revealed during the cold

As'late as 1989, the year the Berlin wall fell, the Soviet Union had said that "it did not dump, docs not dump, nor plans to dump radioactive waste al sea." Greenpeace re called.

The Japanese Daily Asahi, which also quoted the Russian document. said Friday that 38 ships filed with nuclear waste had offloaded the contents into ten dumps in the Sea of •teas

The director getara! ul Japans science- and technology agency. Mamoru Nakajima, told journalists that Tokyo would try to get hold of the report as soon as possible through diplomatic c hannels. It would react only af ter having analysed it* contents, he said.