At 19.30 on Monday, two unusual echoes ticked in on Christian Radich’s radar. The Norwegian training ship sailed through the Baltic on its way from Oslo to Swedish Gotland. The course was directly south of where gas from the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines would later turn out to be leaking. The Danish Defense has released aerial video of the gas leak. Helicopter Wing / The Danish Armed Forces – There were unusual echoes. Otherwise, you get a clear signature on other vessels and such, but these echoes behaved a little differently, says Captain Fridtjof Jungeling to news, adding: – Pipelines are marked on the sea chart, so we saw that the two echoes were in the same area. So we sailed around. The picture shows the leak in the Baltic Sea. Photo: Danish Defense On Tuesday morning, the Swedish Maritime Administration told the Swedish Maritime Administration that leaks had been discovered on both Nord Stream 1 and 2. The two pipelines transport gas from Russia to Europe. The leaks have been discovered in international waters. The authorities in several countries, including Denmark and Sweden, believe it is a matter of sabotage. – Jungeling in particular contacted the Swedish authorities around 8 pm. They could confirm that there was a suspected gas leak on the pipeline. Fridtjof Jungeling is captain of the school ship Christian Radich. Photo: Kilian Munch / Kilian Munch The Swedish Coast Guard informs news that they were first informed of the gas leak at 19.45 by the Swedish main rescue centre. The ship changed course. They sailed three nautical miles, or around six kilometers, north of the gas leaks. It was dark, and Jungeling could not see the leak from the ship. But in lieu of the pipeline, the smell of gas was in the air. – It was a bit like the smell from a gas kitchen. It was in the air. It was a bit subtle, but we could clearly notice that it smelled of gas, he says. This is where the North Stream cable goes. Measuring stations in Denmark, Norway and Sweden recorded powerful underwater explosions on Monday in the same place as the leaks from Nord Stream 1 and 2. The first explosion was registered at 02.03 on the night of Monday, while the second explosion was registered at 19.04. The two explosions had a strength of 1.9 and 2.3 respectively. Pictures taken by the Dove satellites show the gas leak in the Baltic Sea. Photo: Planet Labs PBC / Planet Labs PBC Registered explosion at 19.04 Associate Professor Björn Lund at the Swedish National Seismic Network, SNSN, has previously said that the first explosion had an explosive force equivalent to a couple of hundred kilos of dynamite. At the time, Jungeling did not find the matter so dramatic. The school ship made it safely to Gotland, and he found that the coast guard handled the matter in a good way. Image of the school ship Christian Radich Photo: Christian Radich – But looking back, and with the attention and consequences this can have, it is a bit special to have been as relatively close as we were, he says. Both Sweden, Denmark and Norway have raised the level of preparedness as a result of the gas leaks. The countries have also been in contact with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about the leaks. Norway’s gas supply was, among other things, designated by lieutenant colonel Geir Hågen Karlsen as “the most strategically important sabotage target in the whole of Europe”. No country or non-state actor has so far been accused of being behind the sabotage by Western authorities. Ukraine has accused Russia of being behind it, which the Kremlin says is “stupid and absurd”.
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– Smelled like a gas kitchen – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
