Russian troops invading Ukraine approached, Wednesday, March 2, the largest power plant in Europe, that of Zaporijjia, located in the center of the country. Never has a war taken place in a nuclearized country. An unprecedented threat, which prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to convene an emergency meeting of the Board of Governors in Vienna on the same day.
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According to the IAEA, 51.2% of Ukrainian electricity production comes from nuclear power. The country operates 16 reactors including four power plants, not counting Chernobyl, a symbolic place of the dangers of the atom since the explosion of a reactor in 1986. The plant still contains 20,000 cubic meters of waste and its capture by the army Russian at the start of the invasion generated a lot of concern.
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Radioactivity increased at Chernobyl
Shortly following the fighting, the IAEA noted that the rate radioactivity had increased in the surroundings, before returning to acceptable levels, probably because of the vibrations linked to the passage of the tanks, which raised the contaminated dust from the roads. A nuclear accident in Chernobyl, which is surrounded by a large exclusion zone, would, however, be less serious than a scenario where an operating plant is affected.
It seems unlikely that Russia is directly targeting one of these installations, even if Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry, affirmed on February 26 that enemy soldiers had pointed their rockets in the direction of the Zaporizhja power station. On the other hand, there are many risks of accidents.
The fear of a new Fukushima
First, there is the hypothesis of an accidental shooting, all the more worrying as the Russian shootings are more and more frequent. A radioactive waste storage center located in Kiev has already been hit by a missile, without being damaged, reminds the IAEA. The bombings are also likely to destroy power lines and interrupt the cooling of power stations. This is what happened in 2011 in Fukushima, Japan, causing the most serious nuclear disaster of the 21st century.
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Finally, the IAEA says it fears that the war will prevent plant personnel from working properly, which might lead to breaches of security measures. “Personnel at all nuclear facilities [doit] to be able to rest,pleaded the agency. It insists that persons having effective control of these sites do not take “no measure likely to compromise their safety or subject them to undue pressure”.