The Swedish Coast Guard has detected a fourth leak in Nord Stream pipelines

OSLO (Reuters) – The Swedish Coast Guard discovered a fourth gas leak on the damaged Nord Stream pipeline earlier this week, a Swedish Coast Guard spokesman told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper.

The European Union suspects sabotage was behind the leakage of gas through Russia’s undersea pipelines to Europe and has promised a “strong” response to any deliberate disruption of energy infrastructure.

“Two of those four are in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone,” Coast Guard spokeswoman Jenny Larson told the newspaper late Wednesday. The other two breaches are in the Danish exclusive economic zone.

The Coast Guard did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Thursday.

While neither pipeline was in use at the time of the suspected eruptions, they were filled with gas that had been flowing into the Baltic Sea since the ruptures on Monday.

The Swedish Coast Guard said the fourth leak was on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, close to a larger crater found in nearby Nord Stream 1.

This week, Danish authorities reported one hole in each of the two sections of the pipeline in their waters.

(Reporting: Terje Solsvik) Editing by Stein Jacobsen and Clarence Fernandez

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