Two people were killed in an explosion at a military base used for missile tests in the far north of Russia.

Six people sustained injuries from the blast.

Authorities in the nearby city of Severodvinsk said radiation levels briefly rose after the blast, but the defense ministry said levels were “normal”.

“During the test of a liquid propellant jet engine, an explosion occurred and the equipment caught fire,” the ministry said of the incident in the small town of Nyonoska.

“As a result of the accident, six defense ministry employees and a developer were injured. Two specialists died of their wounds,” it said.

“There’s no radioactive contamination,” a spokeswoman told.

The authorities said on their website that automatic radiation detection sensors in the city “recorded a brief rise in radiation levels.

Currently the levels have normalized,” they said.

Last month, a nuclear submersible caught fire in the Barents Sea near Arkhangelsk following the explosion, having killed 14 people.

An explosion in an ammunition depot killed one person earlier this week in Achinsk town in Siberia.