The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was reconnected to the power grid on Wednesday after generators ensured vital safety functions, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced. “Our on-site team informed me that external power has been restored at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant,” IAEA Director Rafael Grossi announced in an update to a previous statement posted on Twitter.
Grossi reported in the morning that the Russian-occupied power plant had lost its connection to the external power grid and had come to rely on diesel generators to cool nuclear reactors.
Lack of cooling can cause a reactor core to melt and lead to the release of potentially catastrophic radioactivity.
In updating the information, Grossi said that the plant’s operator, the Ukrainian Energoatom, reported that the power cut “was caused by the bombing of a distant substation, which reveals the precariousness of the situation.”
“We need a buffer zone as soon as possible,” Grossi said, reaffirming the call he had already made in the morning, and which he discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.
In a statement on its website, the IAEA said nothing about Putin’s response, but announced that Grossi would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the coming days, following talks in Moscow.
Energoatom, in charge of nuclear power plants in Ukraine, said Russian forces occupying the Zaporizhia unit prevented fuel from entering emergency generators.
“Energoatom prepared and shipped another batch of diesel to ZNPP [sigla em inglês da central]. However, as of 10:00 a.m., the Russian side does not allow the passage of the convoy of company vehicles, ”he denounced.
The blackout was caused by a Russian bombardment that damaged the Dniprovska substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region, north of Zaporizhia, at 9:00 local time (minus two hours in Lisbon), according to the state company.
“Russian bombing and damage to energy infrastructure related to the operation of nuclear power plants are the same manifestations of nuclear terrorism as the direct bombing of the ZNPP, and carry the same consequences and threats as a radiation accident,” he told Energoatom. .
“The invaders continue to ignore the nuclear and radiological safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, threatening the world with a radiological disaster,” he added.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for bombing the plant, which damaged some of the facility’s buildings and the power supply system.
Russia declared that the plant had come into its possession after the annexation of the Zaporizhia region at the end of September, along with Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson, as part of the offensive launched on February 24 this year.
Ukraine has four nuclear power plants with a total of 15 reactors, although not all of them are operational.
Six of the reactors are at the Zaporizhia plant, the largest in Europe.
The most serious accident at a nuclear power plant occurred in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, when the country was part of the former Soviet Union.
Source: TSF
