Gas leaks into the Baltic Sea after Nord Stream disaster

Seismologists registered explosions near the Nord Stream pipelines in the last 36 hours, a media outlet reported, citing Swedish national broadcaster SVT.

SVT can reveal that measuring stations in both Sweden and Denmark registered strong underwater explosions in the same area as the gas leaks on Monday, The Guardian reported.

"There is no doubt that these are explosions," Bjorn Lund, lecturer in seismology at the Swedish National Seismic Network (SNSN), was quoted as saying by SVT.

The first explosion was recorded at 2.03 a.m. on the night of Monday and the second at 7.04 p.m. on Monday.

The warnings about the gas leaks came from the maritime administration at 1.52 p.m. and 8.41 p.m. on Monday, respectively, after ships detected bubbles on the surface.

SVT has obtained the coordinates of the measured explosions and they are in the same area where the gas leaks were registered, The Guardian reported.

The apparent leaks in the Nord Stream pipeline are both near the island of Bornholm, which belongs to Denmark in the Baltic sea.

According to Lund, one of the explosions had a magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale and was recorded at 30 measuring stations in southern Sweden.

Before the reports from the seismologists, there had already been speculation about possible sabotage, as the pipeline operator had described three lines suffering significant damage within the space of a day as "unprecedented".

Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has described the major leaks in two Russian gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea as a "terrorist attack". (KB/IANS)