Ukraine’s state nuclear company, Energoatom, said Friday the plant was still not supplying power for Ukraine although it was being safely powered itself through a repaired line from the country’s power grid.
There were no issues with the plant’s machinery or safety systems, it said, and work was ongoing to reconnect two of the plant’s reactors to Ukraine’s power grid.
Russian-installed officials in the surrounding Zaporizhzhia region sought to play down the gravity of the situation. “There was just an emergency situation” that was handled by the plant’s safety systems, Alexander Volga, a Russian-installed official in the nearby town of Energodar, told Tass state news agency Friday.
Intense fighting around the site has spurred growing fears of a catastrophe. The two sides have traded blame for the attacks, with world leaders calling for a demilitarized zone around the nuclear complex while pushing for access for United Nations inspectors.
Any damage to the plant would be “suicide,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned earlier this month.
Ukraine has warned that Russia was planning to disconnect the plant in a potentially risky effort to divert it to the Russian grid. A disruption in the supply of electricity to the plant could also knock out cooling systems that are essential for the safe operation of the reactors, while the emergency diesel generators are sometimes unreliable.
Nuclear experts have also raised concerns about the risk the fighting could pose to the plant’s reactors and silos of nuclear waste around it.
Ukraine and its international allies, including the United States, have been urging Russia to hand over control of the plant. Moscow captured the site in March and has controlled it since, although Ukrainian engineers still operate it.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other international organizations to act “much faster” because, he said, “every minute that the Russian troops stay at the nuclear power plant is a risk of a global radiation catastrophe.”
In response to the incident, the IAEA warned that a secure off-site power supply from the grid is essential for ensuring nuclear safety. It added that there was “no information immediately available” on the cause of the power cuts.
“Almost every day there is a new incident at or near the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement. “We can’t afford to lose any more time. I’m determined to personally lead an IAEA mission to the plant in the next few days to help stabilize the nuclear safety and security situation there.”
Guterres, the U.N. chief, said Thursday that he was ready to support any IAEA mission from Kyiv to the plant.
Artem Grudinin contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
