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The director-general of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said on Monday he was on his way to Ukraine to assess the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after a dam burst lowered the water level in the reservoir it uses to cool reactors and spent fuel. lowered.
The director, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he would meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and presenting a plan for relief in the aftermath of flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam last week. Due to the breach of the dam, the water of the Dnipro River flowed downstream and drastically reduced the volume of water in the Kakhovka reservoir.
Mr Grossi said over the weekend that while there was no immediate threat to the water supply at the Zaporizhzhia plant, the UN’s nuclear watchdog was urgently seeking new data on the depletion of water levels in the reservoir.
He said there were discrepancies between water level measurements taken by Ukrainian officials upstream of the Kakhovka dam and those taken at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is located next to the reservoir and under Russian control. Ukraine controls the western shores of the reservoir, while Russia controls parts of the eastern shore.
At least 14 people have died as a result of the dam disaster, which has also caused widespread environmental damage and left hundreds of thousands of people without access to clean drinking water. The drop in the water level of the reservoir also poses the latest risk to the nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, seized by Russian troops right at the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
Although the nuclear power plant has not produced electricity for several months, “it still requires access to water and power for cooling and other essential safety and security functions and to avoid the risk of a possible fuel meltdown and release of radioactive material,” the watchdog group said. , the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement on Sunday.
Water to cool the plant’s six reactors and perform other critical safety functions is supplied through a pond on the facility’s grounds that is fed by the reservoir. The pond, which is more than two miles long, more than a mile wide and about 50 feet deep, holds enough water to meet the plant’s needs for “several months,” said Mr. Grossi. But it also needs to be replenished with reservoir water, which means accurate monitoring of the reservoir’s water level is crucial.
Mr Grossi said there was a difference of about 6 feet between the water level readings at the thermal plant on the site of the nuclear plant and readings elsewhere on the reservoir.
IAEA inspectors stationed at the plant since last year need access to the thermal plant to understand the reason for the difference, Mr Grossi said. Ukrainian workers continue to operate the factory, but security and access are controlled by Russian troops.
Five of the plant’s six reactors are in cold shutdown, the safest operating condition, while the sixth remains in hot shutdown to produce steam to support processes that contribute to site safety, the IAEA said in a statement. her statement on Sunday. That seemed to contradict an earlier statement by the Ukrainian state nuclear company, which said the last reactor is still producing energy at the power station. had been put into a “cold shutdown”. — a state where it no longer generates electricity — as a safety measure after the destruction of the dam threatened the water supply.
The cooling pond has become even more important to maintaining plant stability since the dam was breached, and Mr Grossi said last week that nothing should be done to damage it.
Over the past year, shelling has interrupted the external power supply to the plant and also hit a spent fuel storage area. Mr Grossi has repeatedly warned of the possibility of a nuclear disaster at the plant.
In addition, Kiev’s armed forces recently launched a counter-offensive in southern Ukraine, raising the possibility of a military confrontation near the plant.