What happens if Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant explodes? - Al Jazeera English

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised alarms about the shelling that is taking place at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, saying the current situation poses a great risk and could lead to a “nuclear disaster”.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is the largest plant in Europe and among the 10 largest in the world; it generates half of Ukraine’s nuclear-derived power.

It is located in the southern Ukrainian steppe on the Dnieper River, some 550km (342 miles) southeast of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and about 525km (325 miles) south of Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident in 1986.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian operator Energoatom said the Russian forces occupying the area were preparing to “connect the plant to the Crimean electricity grid”.

Michael Black, the director of the Centre of Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London, told Al Jazeera that the main concern is that connecting the plant to the Crimean electricity grid could interrupt the offsite power to the reactors.

“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, Grossi said.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Grossi said he was preparing to brief the UN Security Council about the nuclear safety in the plant on Thursday and his efforts to agree and lead an expert mission to the site as soon as possible.

The watchdog also said on Tuesday that Ukraine had informed the IAEA about the restoration of a power line that can be used to supply the plant with electricity from a nearby thermal power plant if needed.

Grossi outlined the need for a secure offsite power supply as one of the seven nuclear safety pillars at the beginning of the conflict.

“So, for instance, at Chernobyl, the people who were going into the reactor to actually stand on top of the burning building and put the fire out were exposed to huge amounts of radiation and suffered the impacts of that within hours,” Ross said.

“The only certainty we have really is that the military activity around the nuclear power plant poses a risk to it.

“We could see an uptick in patients because of the psychological symptoms that are connected to the knowledge that radiation might have leaked from a nuclear power plant nearby,”