Ukrainian authorities said electricity was cut off at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Wednesday Invading forces of Russia In order to obfuscate and warn that it may lead to a “nuclear discharge”.
The UN-backed International Atomic Energy Agency has played down fears of an impending radioactive release, but Ukrainian The National Emergency Services Agency said If power is not guaranteed to the plant’s cooling systems – which keep spent nuclear fuel safely surrounded by water – they could create a “radioactive cloud” to blow up “other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe”.
Chernobyl power plant, site The worst nuclear disaster in the world in 1986“It was completely disconnected from the power grid,” UkraineOn Wednesday, the national energy company Okerengo, a subsidiary of the national energy company, said in a statement on its Facebook page, adding that the military operations meant “there is no possibility of restoring the lines.”
State-owned Energoatom, which operates all nuclear power plants in Ukraine, said radioactive material could be released from the plant if it is unable to cool spent nuclear fuel.
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushenko said that the authorities in Kyiv could not confirm anything about the status of the Chernobyl facility due to the failure of monitoring systems. He stressed the need to repair the power supply “as soon as possible,” but added that Chernobyl, like all Ukrainian nuclear plants, has a diesel generator system designed to power the basic systems in the event of a power outage.
“It has the possibility of maintenance for several days using diesel generators,” Halushenko told the BBC.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on “the entire international community to immediately demand Russia to cease fire and allow repair crews to restore electricity as soon as possible” to Chernobyl.
He said the standby generators may only run for 48 hours.
“After that, the cooling systems of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility will shut down, making radioactive leaks imminent,” Kuleba said in a series of tweets. “Putin’s barbaric war is endangering the whole of Europe. He must stop it immediately!”
Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said earlier Wednesday that “remote transmission of data from safeguards monitoring systems” at the Chernobyl plant “has been lost”, and that the global nuclear watchdog is “looking to place” the monitoring systems at other sites. in Ukraine.
But the agency played down immediate concerns about a possible radioactive exit at Chernobyl on Wednesday, saying it did not see “any critical safety impact” at the plant, and cited a March 3 agency report that said: “Due to the time elapsed since the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The heat load of the spent fuel storage pool and the volume of cooling water in the pond were sufficient to maintain effective heat removal without the need for an electrical supply.”
That report also referred to standby generators, “in the event of a complete loss of power”.
Russian forces quickly captured the Chernobyl outpost after launching their invasion on February 24. Ukrainian officials said the team of plant operators that ensure safe operations at the decommissioned facility are still trying to carry out their work this week, but on orders from Russian forces.
Russia since then Captured another nuclear power plant in Ukraine – One fully functional and the largest in Europe.
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