The plant is running on emergency generators after the latest round of Russian shelling cut off external power to the site.
Russian missile attacks caused a crippled nuclear plant in Ukraine to lose all external power for the second time in five days, increasing the risk of a radiation disaster because critical safety systems need electricity to operate, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator said Wednesday.
On-site monitors from the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog reported the last remaining outside line to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was restored about eight hours later. The war-related interruption nonetheless highlighted “how precarious the situation is” at Europe’s largest nuclear plant, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi said.
The nuclear scare came amid a flurry of developments in Russia’s 7 1/2-month invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s main domestic security agency said eight people were arrested over an explosion on a bridge that links Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.
The Ukrainian president’s office said strikes Moscow ordered in retaliation for the bridge attack killed at least 14 people and wounded 34 in the last day. Western officials meeting in Brussels discussed their plans to maintain winter weapon and aid deliveries to Ukraine.
Ukrainian nuclear power operator Energoatom said the Zaporizhzhia plant suffered a “blackout” Wednesday morning when a missile damaged an electrical substation, leading to the emergency shutdown of the plant’s last external power source.
All six of the reactors were stopped earlier due to the war. But they still require electricity to prevent them from overheating to the point of a meltdown that could cause radiation to pour from Europe’s largest nuclear plant. Energoatom said diesel generators were supplying the plant but Russian troops blocked a convoy carrying additional fuel for the back-up equipment.
“Basically what we’ve got here is the weaponization of civil nuclear, perhaps for the first time, » Paul Dorfman, a nuclear expert at England’s University of Sussex said. « And in an increasingly unstable world, it’s important to understand this and what this implies for nuclear worldwide.”
Ukrainian workers later found a way to repair the line and connected the plant to the Ukrainian power grid, the company said. The chief of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, told The Associated Press last month the plant typically had enough diesel on hand to run the generators – “the station’s last defense before a radiation accident” for 10 days.
