An explosion at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant would multiply the consequences of Chernobyl by six

The bombing of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, marks a before and after in the war in Ukraine. The threat of a new nuclear catastrophe has set off all the alarms in a country that is still suffering from the aftermath of Chernobyl. The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe in terms of installed capacity. Its six VVER-1000 reactors have a capacity of 1,000 MW. The first was put into operation in December 1984 and the sixth in October 1995.

President Zelenski and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmitro Kuleba, have alerted the international community about the risk of damage to the plant: “It will be the end of everything, it will be the end of Europe“, Zelensky remarked in a speech to the population in which he called on Europe to “wake up” to the Russian threat.

In this sense, the Ukrainian president has remarked that the Zaporizhia plant it has 6 reactors, while only one caused the Chernobyl catastrophe. He has also indicated that Russian tanks are equipped with thermal imaging cameras so that soldiers know where to shoot. “Russia wants to repeat the Chernobyl catastrophe and is repeating it, but six more times,” she said.

Kuleba, for his part, has stated that the radiation at the plant “is currently normal”, but has insisted that the Russian Army is bombing it “from all sides”. “If it explodes it will be ten times bigger (the catastrophe) than Chernobyl” in 1986, it has alerted. “The Russians must cease fire immediately.allow access to firefighters and create a security zone,” he insisted on the social network Twitter.

Is there a radiation hazard?

The spokesman for the nuclear power plant, Andrii Tuz, explained that “the nuclear fuel is inside the atomic reactor. It has not yet been discharged. In addition, there is a nuclear fuel storage and recharge pool in the central hall that also contains uranium and assemblies. of nuclear fuel,” he said, by emphasizing the danger of the sealed cover being breached.

The United States has ensured that the nuclear power plant does not register “elevated levels of radiation“. The US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, has added that “the plant’s reactors are protected by robust containment structures and have been safely shut down“, he added. Even so, however, that the Russian military operations near that plant are “reckless”.

Hours before, the mayor of Energodar had reported heavy fighting at the entrances to the nuclear power plant. “There have been fierce battles of more than an hour at the entrances to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. Our National Guards maintain the defense, he affirmed then, after indicating that ‘a column of enemy vehicles’ He was heading in the direction of the nuclear power plant. and that loud shots were heard in the city. On Wednesday, hundreds of employees of the nuclear power plant tried to prevent a column of the Russian Army from accessing the plant with tank trucks and tires.

This is Chernobyl 35 years later

The explosion of a single reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a catastrophe with almost 100,000 direct or indirect victims. The first warning of high levels of radiation came from the north of Sweden, specifically from the Forsmark plant, more than 1,100 kilometers from Chernobyl.

Today, It is still considered the most serious nuclear incident in history.only comparable to what happened in Fukushima in 2011. In fact, Ukraine has still not managed to seal the radioactive leaks from the reactor that exploded and, of the 800,000 liquidators who worked there, only 130,000 are still alive.

The consequences are still present for the population of the entire exclusion zone. Doctors warn that children born now could still suffer from malformations. In fact, a wide variety of disorders continue to be attributed to Chernobyl.

Chernobyl is currently still inhabited by between 2,000 and 3,000 people, and 150,000 people travel there every year. However, life is still not normal in an area still devastated by the ghost of radiation. The explosion of April 26, 1986 altered even the maps. Pripyat was a city of 350,000 people, and there, unlike Chernobyl, no one lives anymore.

Radiation leaks have been detected as of 2019, despite the structures that try to bury all the nuclear material. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the situation is still “potentially dangerous” due to the deterioration of the sarcophagus.