Power to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost after missile strikes
A Russian serviceman guards an area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in territory under Russian military control, in southeastern Ukraine, on May 1, 2022.
AP
The power supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was lost as a result of missile attacks on Ukraine.
“The last line of communication between the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP and the Ukrainian power system was cut off as a result of rocket attacks,” Ukraine’s state nuclear power company Energoatom said in a statement Thursday.
“Currently, the station is de-energized and has gone into blackout mode,” it said. This is the sixth time this has happened since Russian forces occupied the plant early on in the invasion of Ukraine.
Energoatom said 18 diesel generators have been switched on to power the plant’s needs with enough fuel for 10 days’ worth of power. “The countdown has begun,” Energoatom said.
Russia unleashed a wave of drone and missile attacks across Ukraine overnight, with the capital Kyiv among the cities hit. Energoatom did not supply any details on how missile strikes had directly affected power to the plant, while Russia-installed officials in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia said that the halt in electricity supplies to power the plant was “a provocation,” Reuters reported.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest of its kind, has frequently found itself at the center of the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces, which accuse each other of shelling and endangering the functioning and safety of the facility and risking a potential catastrophic nuclear accident.
Energoatom said Thursday that “if it is impossible to renew the external power supply of the station during this time, an accident with radiation consequences for the whole world may occur.”
International observers have called for a demilitarized zone around the plant.
— Holly Ellyatt
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