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Moscow - Russia shut down a nuclear reactor on board a nuclear submarine docked at an Arctic shipyard after a fire broke out on deck Thursday, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted the country's defense ministry as saying.

All the weapons had been removed from the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine, which launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea as recently as July, before repair work started, a navy spokesman said according to Interfax.

Russia's emergencies ministry said that radiation levels were normal and that the fire caused no radiation leak or injuries.

"Radiation levels are normal," a spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry in the Murmansk region, where the shipyard is located, said by telephone. "No one was injured."

"Firefighters are trying to put out the fire," she added.

The fire is believed to have started when wooden scaffolding caught fire during repairs to the K-84 submarine, which some Russian news agencies said had been hoisted into a dry dock.

The ministry said in a statement carried by the ITAR-Tass news agency that the fire resulted from a violation of technological rules.

A ministry official said a fire engulfed wooden scaffolding at the yard, but refused to give further details.

Russia's worst post-Soviet submarine disaster occurred in August 2000 when the Kursk nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea killing all 118 crewmen aboard.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.