Swedish seismic network registers blasts near Russian pipeline leaks
Bjorn Lund, a seismologist with Uppsala University who is part of Sweden's national seismic network, said the first explosion was recorded in the early hours southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. The latter and stronger blast that night was northeast of the island and equivalent to a magnitude-2.3 earthquake."We know very well what an underwater blast looks like. And so in this case, there's no doubt this is not an earthquake," Lund said.
No official presented evidence of what caused the Nord Stream problems, but with distrust of Russia running high, some feared Moscow sabotaged its own infrastructure out of spite or to warn that pipelines are vulnerable to attack. The leaks off the coast of Denmark and Sweden raised the stakes on whether energy infrastructure in European waters was being targeted and leading to a small bump in natural gas prices.
The extent of the damage means the Nord Stream pipelines are unlikely to be able to carry any gas to Europe this winter even if there was political will to bring them online, analysts at the Eurasia Group said. Puck Nielsen said of possible sabotage that "technically speaking, this is not difficult. It just requires a boat. It requires some divers that know how to handle explosive devices."
The Danish and Swedish maritime authorities issued navigation warnings after the leaks in the pipelines were detected northeast and southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm.
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