At 2.30am, Ukraine time, a fire broke out at the Zaprorizhzhia nuclear power plant following shelling by Russian troops, according to Ukrainian officials.
An employee at the plant posted on Telegram that Russian forces had fired on the facility and there was a “real threat of nuclear danger at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe”, according to The Guardian.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed the reports. “Russian army is firing from all sides upon Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” he tweeted. “Fire has already broken out. If it blows up, it will be 10 times larger than Chernobyl. Russians must IMMEDIATELY cease the fire, allow firefighters, establish a security zone!”
Shortly after, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported the radiation at the plant was “within normal limits” and the fire conditions at the plant were “normal”.
It reported that the fire was in a building outside the power plant. The service later reported that the third power unit at the plant was disconnected at 2.26am, and that only one of the plant’s six units was still operating.
Security CCTV footage, verified by The New York Times, showed a building ablaze inside the power complex near a line of military vehicles early on Friday, Ukraine time. The videos appeared to show people in the vehicles firing at buildings in the power plant, The Times reported.
It’s unclear if the vehicles were Russian or Ukrainian. Andrii Tuz, a spokesman for the plant, earlier said firefighters could not access the site and extinguish the flames because of heavy shelling.
The emergency service later reported the fire started in a training building outside the main reactor complex, with 40 firefighters and 10 units working to tackle the blaze. At about 6am (Friday afternoon AEDT), the fire in the building had been “localised” and by 6.20am it was extinguished.
“At 06:20 the fire at the Zaporizhzhia NPP training building in Enerhodar was extinguished. There are no dead or injured,” the State Emergency Service statement said, according to the CNN.
What is the Zaprorizhzhia nuclear power plant?
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is in Enerhodar, in south-east Ukraine. It is about 200 kilometres from the contested Donbas region and 550km south-east of Kyiv.
It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the ninth largest in the world. Built between 1984 and 1995, it has six reactors, producing almost 6000MW, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The plant generates nearly half of the country’s electricity derived from nuclear power, and more than a fifth of total electricity generated in Ukraine. In comparison, the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine produced 3800MW. The four reactors at Chernobyl were shut down following a fire at one of them in 1986, and it is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history.
How serious is the situation?
We don’t know.
US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the nuclear plant’s reactors “are protected by robust containment structures and reactors are being safely shut down”.
She said the US Department of Energy had activated its Nuclear Incident Response Team and was monitoring the situation with the US Department of Defence and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant’s spokesman Andrii Tuz said the plant had not sustained any “critical damage”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, citing Ukrainian authorities, said the fire had not affected any “essential” equipment, and staff were taking action to mitigate any damage.
The agency and the US Department of Energy said their latest information showed no indication of elevated radiation levels at the plant. The chances of an explosion, nuclear meltdown or radioactive release were low, according to experts.
However, the reactors’ cores are full of highly radioactive fuel. An additional danger at the nuclear plant site is the open pools of water behind the complex where spent fuel rods have been cooled for years.
The New York Times reported experts feared errant shells or missiles that hit such sites could set off radiological disasters. Graham Allison, professor at the Belfer Centre, Harvard University, told CNN that nuclear plants have systems to automatically fight fire, but not all fires.
“Not all fires in a power plant have catastrophic consequences,” he told CNN.
What has Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said?
Zelensky has warned if the plant explodes it would be six times bigger than the Chernobyl disaster.
In a Friday video posted on his Telegram account and on social media, he urged Europe to “wake up”.
“For the first time ever in our history, in the history of humankind, the terrorist country has reverted to nuclear terror. Russian propaganda had warned in the past to cover the world in nuclear ash.
“Now this isn’t just a warning, this is real. We don’t know for sure what the results of this fire will be, we don’t know when the explosion will happen or, God willing, not going to happen.
“Nobody can know or calculate for certain, but our boys have always kept the nuclear plant safe. We made sure no provocations could happen. We made sure no one could go there or access it. We made sure no one could plant bombs there.
“Plant bombs and keep the world hostage to nuclear catastrophe. We must stop Russian soldiers now. Immediately call your politicians. Ukraine is 15 nuclear blocks, if there is an explosion it is the end for everyone. End to Europe.
“It’s the evacuation of entire Europe. Only immediate action can stop the Russian troops. Do not let Europe die in the nuclear catastrophe.”
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