Ukrainian nuclear power plant does not work because of shelling, disaster is imminent
2022.11.20 07:27
Budrigannews.com – Russia-controlled Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was rocked by shelling on Sunday, with the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog denouncing such an attack as threatening a large-scale nuclear disaster.
The repeated shelling of factories in southern Ukraine has raised the possibility of a serious accident – the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear accident – just 500 km (300 miles) from the scene.
The Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said more than a dozen explosions occurred on Saturday night and Sunday at the Zaporizhia factory, which Russia controlled shortly after its invasion of Ukraine.
The IAEA ground team said several buildings, systems and equipment at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant had been damaged. The IAEA team was able to see part of the explosion through a window.
“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is very disturbing,” Rafael Grossi, chairman of the United Nations Nuclear Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
“This explosion at the site of this massive nuclear power plant is totally unacceptable. Whoever is behind this should be stopped immediately. Like I said many times before, you are playing with fire. It is!”
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has a Soviet-designed VVER-1000V-320 water-cooled reactor and water-cooled reactors, 235 of which have a half-life of more than 700 million years.
The reactor shuts down, but the nuclear fuel can overheat if the power that drives the cooling system is cut. Power lines were cut multiple times by artillery fire.
The Russian defense ministry said Ukraine had fired artillery shells at power lines supplying power to the plant, but TASS quoted an official at Russian nuclear operator Rosenergoatom as saying that the site’s storage reported that part of the facility had been attacked.
“They are shelling today, not just yesterday,” said Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Rosenergoatom’s CEO, who added that shelling at the site poses a threat to nuclear safety.
Karchaa said the shells were fired near a dry nuclear waste storage facility and a building that houses fresh spent nuclear fuel, but no radioactive releases have been detected so far, according to Tas.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of attacking factories and risking nuclear accidents.
The facility supplied about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity prior to Russia’s February 24th invasion, and has been forced to use backup generators many times.
