Filenews 10 March 2022
The International Atomic Energy Agency has lost contact with its remote systems that monitor radioactive material at the Zaporizia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the IAEA said in a statement.
Zaporizia, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, has been in the hands of the Russians since last week.
The international organisation's announcement came just hours after it admitted that the same has happened at the Chernobyl plant, near the abandoned power plant that was the epicentre of the 1986 nuclear disaster.
Both locations are under the control of Russian forces, but are operated by Ukrainian personnel in conditions that the IAEA stresses pose a risk to the safety of the facilities.
Concern about data disruption
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi expressed concern "about the sudden interruption of the flow of data to the Agency's headquarters in Vienna from the two locations, where there are large quantities of nuclear material in the form of spent or fresh nuclear fuel and other types of nuclear material."
It was not clear what caused the disturbance, the IAEA said, adding that transmissions from other nuclear facilities in Ukraine, including its three other operational nuclear plants, are continuing. The condition of the equipment it had stopped emitting is "uncertain".
The international organisation also reported that the Manager of Zaporizia had informed that two of the four external high-voltage lines had been destroyed, so only two were now available.
The transformer of a unit was also undergoing urgent repair, after a failure in its cooling system was discovered after the events of March 4, the date of the fire and collisions.
"These recent developments have added to the IAEA's growing concerns about the impact of the conflict in Ukraine on the country's nuclear facilities," the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
