MOSCOW, Oct 17 — Russia removed three US diplomats from a train near the site of a mysterious military testing accident on Monday because they did not have special permits to be in the area, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday.

Russia's state nuclear agency, Rosatom, has acknowledged that five of its nuclear workers were killed in an Aug. 8 explosion during a rocket engine test near the White Sea in far northern Russia.

Interfax cited a source as saying that the US diplomats had been let go, but are regarded to have broken Russian law.

"The American diplomats were on official travel and had properly notified Russian authorities of their travel,” a spokesman for the US State Department in Washington said.

The Severodvinsk region came into the spotlight in August amid contradictory reports about the consequences of the explosion.

The Defence Ministry initially said background radiation remained normal after the incident, but Russia's state weather agency said radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk had risen by up to 16 times. — Reuters