The U.S. Navy sought Thursday to assure the public that the aircraft carrier Midway was safe after two explosions on board killed two crew members and seriously injured nine. ``The safety of the ship was never in jeopardy,'' Rear Adm. Lyle Bull, commander of the Battle Force 7th Fleet, told reporters escorted aboard the ship a day after the fire. Japan, the only country to experience nuclear attack, asked the U.S. military to improve its safety practices. Yokosuka officials had demanded assurances of the 45-year-old carrier's safety before its return. Demonstrators charged the ship was carrying nuclear weapons into its home port at Yokosuka despite a Japanese ban. The United States refuses to comment on the location of its nuclear weapons. About 50 protesters chanting ``Don't let the Midway land here'' and ``Nuclear Ship Get Out'' assembled outside the Navy base gate about an hour before the 67,000-ton ship moored at Yokosuka, 28 miles southwest of Tokyo. Eight of the demonstrators wore sashes identifying them as victims of the U.S. atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Navy officials allowed relatives of the crew onto the ship before reporters were taken aboard. ``Midway is safe and seaworthy in all respects,'' Bull said, stressing that there was no danger to the ship's weapons systems from the explosions. Bull said the first explosion occurred shortly after noon Wednesday when a fire-fighting crew investigating smoke opened the hatch to a 12-by-12-foot emergency equipment storeroom six decks below the flight deck. ``Death most probably was instantaneous'' for the two sailors killed in the blast, he said. In addition to the nine seriously injured, who were flown to hospitals ashore, seven other injured crewmen were treated on the ship. The second explosion came 45 minutes later, Bull said. Earlier, Navy officials said there was a fire in the room. Bull said there were explosions, burn injuries, smoke and intense heat, but not necessarily a fire. The room was near a pipe for the ship's catapult system containing pressurized steam at 850 degrees and ``water sprayed on the bulkhead turned to steam, that's how hot it was,'' he said. One unidentified crew member interviewed on Japanese television said a fuel pipe near the steam line cracked and leaked fuel, which then ignited. Navy officials said they could not comment until an investigation is complete. Capt. Arthur K. Cebrowski said about 1,000 sailors worked through the night to secure the area and flood it with water and foam and provide support. The bodies were found early Thursday, he said. In Washington, the Pentagon identified the two dead sailors as Ulric Patrick Johnson of Martinez, Calif., and Jeffrey Allan Vierra of Nevada City, Calif. The Midway carries a crew of 4,500 and 62 aircraft. The 1,000-foot carrier was commissioned in 1945 and is the Navy's oldest in active service, although it has been extensively modernized. The explosions occurred as the ship participated in a joint exercise 125 miles northeast of Yokosuka with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. Navy officials said the exercise would continue without the Midway. In Japan many people have misgivings about the presence of 50,000 U.S. troops and U.S. armaments here. The Midway fire was the second serious Navy accident since a series of incidents last fall killed 14 people.
