At the end of last year a fire broke out on a Russian nuclear sub docked in the Murmansk region that was so bad the submarine had to be submerged under water and nine people were hospitalized.

Russian authorities downplayed the incident at the time, saying there was no larger risk in the blaze, and international attention soon went elsewhere.

However, a new Russian article suggest that the situation was far more dangerous than most people knew at the time.

Russia Today reports that the well-respected Vlaast magazine has a story, unfortunately not online, that says that the ship was at the time carrying 16 missiles, each full of fuel, with 4 nuclear warheads on each missile.

There were also 12 torpedoes on board, some equipped with nuclear warheads and the two 90 megawatt water-cooled nuclear reactors (thankfully offline at the time of the accident).

The magazine reports that the fire was raging just meters from all of this highly sensitive weaponry. "Russia, for a day, was on the brink of the biggest catastrophe since the time of Chernobyl," the magazine reports.

An explosion on the submarine would have killed many in the immediate area and required the immediate evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. Long term consequences would be sever, Vlaast reports.

So far Russian authorities are refusing to comment, but one military expert Russia Today spoke to expressed doubts that the submarine would have been armed as it was undergoing maintenance at the time.

WATCH FOOTAGE OF THE BLAZE BELOW: