The attack on the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region may deprive the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant of its cooling capacity in the mid term, causing significant damage to reactors, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told Sputnik
VIENNA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th June, 2023) The attack on the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region may deprive the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant of its cooling capacity in the mid term, causing significant damage to reactors, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told Sputnik.
"If we lose the cooling capability, you can have a meltdown, you can have some radiological consequences, on top of the fact that the reactors themselves could be damaged in a very significant way, apart from the environmental consequences that there could be," Grossi told Sputnik. "I would say, in the mid-term, not in a distant future, there could be some consequences if the situation degrades or gets worse than it is now, but we are not there yet. The situation is a serious one."
The upper part of the Kakhovka HPP was destroyed overnight on Monday into Tuesday. The Nova Kakhovka city authorities later confirmed that the dam was destroyed only partially, but it caused an uncontrollable outflow of water to towns downstream. Moscow and Kiev blamed each other for the incident. Authorities in some of the affected areas have started evacuating the population.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, uses water from the Kakhovka reservoir for cooling purposes.
