“They also said you cannot release cattle out to pasture but no one paid attention,” he told AFP.
Officials in Kazakhstan said earlier Tuesday that a cloud of fumes that had formed over the cosmodrome could move beyond the area.
Head of the emergencies ministry in Kazakhstan, Vladimir Bozhko, was quoted as saying that early indications showed the accident was caused by a malfunction of a first stage engine.
Experts say the disaster is a major blow to the reputation of the reliable Proton M rocket.
“Proton is our main workhorse for commercial use,” space analyst Vadim Lukashevich told AFP. “Businessmen will now start thinking whether they should look for another carrier.”
He added that Russia would likely come under more pressure from Kazakhstan to increase rental payments for the cosmodrome.
Prominent Kazakh environmental activist Mels Yeleusizov blamed the Russians for the disaster.
“This is real slovenliness indeed. Accidents happen all the time,” he said. “It’s high time to ban this Proton.”
Though key accomplishments like sending the first man into space in 1961 have brought Russia’s space programme acclaim, it has recently suffered several major setbacks, notably losing expensive satellites and an unmanned supply ship to the International Space Station.
The most recent disaster brought to memory a horrific rocket explosion at the same Baikonur cosmodrome in 1960 when a prototype rocket exploded on the launch pad and released the highly poisonous rocket fuel in the air dubbed the “devil’s venom”.
During the accident, which the Russian space agency has called a veritable “inferno”, 126 people were burned alive or vaporised altogether, while others died of noxious fumes or succumbed to burns later.
The Soviet Union, which was locked in an arms race with the United States, imposed total secrecy over the disaster, and the files were only declassified in the 1990s.
About The Author
