Technical staff at the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine controlled by Russia face “increasingly difficult conditions” as work continues to restore power to the plant, the nuclear agency reported on Friday. the UN (IAEA).
“Technicians have started repairing the damaged power lines” earlier this week, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement.
According to information transmitted to the IAEA by Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, a section has been repaired, but the external electric power is still not working.
“Repair work will continue despite the difficult situation outside the nuclear power plant,” he added.
Although emergency diesel generators are providing backup power, “it is still important to fix the power lines as soon as possible,” Grossi stressed.
Despite the problems, the IAEA assures that there is no risk of a “critical impact” in the place, where there are radioactive waste management facilities, “since the volume of cooling water from the spent fuel facility is sufficient to maintain heat removal without electricity supply”.
On the other, the regulator “expressed concern about the availability of food stocks” for the 211 technical staff members and guards who are living at the plant since Russia launched its military offensive in Ukraine more than two weeks ago, and “are facing increasingly difficult conditions.”
What’s more, the regulator lost communication with the plant and cannot provide information to the IAEA on radiological control of the facility, although it continues to receive information on the situation “through the senior officials of the plant outside the site,” the statement said.
Regarding the situation of the operating nuclear power plants in Ukraine, of which there are four, he confirmed that 8 of the 15 reactors were still operating, including two at the Zaporizhzhya NPPwith normal radiation levels.
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Zaporozhie, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, It has four high-voltage power lines (750 kV) outside the plant, plus an additional reserve line.
Two of these lines were damaged in the recent fighting in the area, so there are two power lines, plus a reserve one, at the disposal of the plant, where “work is also being done to detect and eliminate unexploded ordnance found in its damaged training center”.
At that plant, the personnel operating the plant (Ukrainian) were rotating according to their usual schedule, but, according to the regulator, “The presence of foreign forces in the area is affecting work morale and causing pressure.”
Additional damage was also reported at a new nuclear research facility in the city of Kharkov. Since its nuclear material is “subcritical”, the IAEA considers that the damage “would not have had any radiological consequence”.
With regard to the partial loss of transmission to the IAEA of remote data on nuclear material and activities at nuclear power plants, it is still out of order from Chernobyl and there are “intermittent problems” from the plant in South Ukraine.
Instead, from Zaporizhzhya the transmission has been restored, the UN agency said. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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