November 22, 2022: -On Sunday, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, under Russian control, was rocking by shelling, which attracted condemnation from the U.N. head atomic watchdog, who said such attacks risked various nuclear disasters.
Repeated sales of the plant in southern Ukraine raised concern regarding the potential for a grave accident 500 km from the site of the world’s nuclear accident, the 1986 Chornobyl catastrophe.
Over a dozen blasts of the Zaporizhzhia plant, which Russia took control of shortly after pursuing its February invasion of Ukraine, on Saturday and Sunday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
An IAEA team on the ground added that there had been damage to a few buildings and techniques equipped at the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station. The IAEA team could see a few of the explosions from their windows.
“The news from our team and this morning are alarming,” U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi counted.
“Explosions occurring at the site of this big nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. Anyone who is behind this must stop immediately. As I have said times before, you’re playing with fire!”
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear ability plant includes six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235, which have a half-life of over 700 million years.
The reactor is shutting down, but there is a chance that nuclear fuel could overheat if the power that causes the cooling systems is cut. Shelling has repeatedly cut power lines.
Russia’s defence ministry added that Ukraine is firing shells at power lines supplying the plant. At the same time, TASS reported a few of the site’s storage facilities had been reaching, quoting an official from Russian nuclear power.
“They shelled not yesterday but today; they shell right now,” Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Rosenergoatom’s CEO, said, adding that any artillery attack at the site endangered nuclear safety.
According to TASS, Karcher said the shells are firing near a dry nuclear waste storage facility that houses fresh spent atomic fuel but that no radioactive emissions had been detected.
Kyiv and Moscow have been accused of attacking the plant and risking a nuclear accident. The facility provided a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s invasion and was forced to operate on backup generators many times.
