There is a “pressing” need to set up a “security protection zone” on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia power plant in Ukraine to save us from a nuclear catastrophe, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday.
“The state of affairs in Ukraine is unprecedented,” the United Nations nuclear watchdog warned. “It is the first time a military battle has befallen amid the facilities of a large, mounted nuclear power” program, it said in a report.
A nuclear accident would be a catastrophe not only for Ukraine but also for the countries “beyond its borders.
A rescuer from the Ukrainian Emergency Ministry at an exercise within Zaporizhzhia on Aug. 17, in case of a probable nuclear incident at the nuclear power plant.
“The IAEA is prepared to begin without delay the consultations leading to the pressing establishment of any such nuclear protection and security protection zone” at the plant, the IAEA stated.
The dire caution from the Vienna-based organization that isn’t always given to hyperbole came just 24 hours after the Ukrainian energy company that runs the Zaporizhzhia complex suggested that the remaining line connecting the energy plant to the Ukrainian electric grid was disconnected after days of “intensive shelling.”
The three other lines went down during the war.
“The world is getting ready for a nuclear catastrophe,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko stated on Facebook.
IAEA leader Rafael Grossi was anticipated to brief the U.N. Security Council on his team’s findings later Tuesday
The Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar went online in the 1980s when the country was a part of the then-Soviet Union and provided as much as 20% of Ukraine’s power after independence. Its six reactors generate extra energy than one of these facilities in the United States.
But it was captured in the early days of the Russian invasion, which started in February.
