The lake from which it draws still holds enough water for a few months, says a spokesman for Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear operator. Others are less optimistic
in occupied southern Ukraine in the early morning of June 6th has had devastating consequences downstream. On June 7th the Ukrainian government said that 42,000 people were at risk from flooding: thousands have been evacuated. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president, has said that hundreds of thousands are “without normal access” to drinking water. But the destruction could pose risks upstream, too, at the Zaporizhia nuclear-power plant.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency , which has a team of monitors at the plant, says that there is “no immediate risk” to the facility. This is because water drawn from Kakhovka reservoir is held in an artificial lake near the plant. Leonid Oliynyk, a spokesman for Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear operator, which is based in Kyiv and ran the plant until Russian forces seized it, says the lake holds enough water for a few months. Others are less optimistic.
. Others report faster depletion. Teams are working to channel as much water as possible from the reservoir to the plant’s reserves before the water level drops below valves that lead to the artificial lake. On Tuesday evening thereckoned that this could happen within a couple of days. Non-essential use of water at the nuclear facility has been restricted. But an advisor to Energoatom criticised the plant’s Russian management for keeping one of the reactors in hot shutdown.
For all that, the situation at the plant appears manageable. Some water can still be sucked out of the reservoir with mobile pumps even after the water there falls below the level of the valves. Water can also be diverted from Enerhodar’s municipal network. If it was indeed Russia that destroyed the dam, as most Western analysts suspect, the goal was probably not to trigger a meltdown.
. Another was probably to prevent the plant from generating electricity in the future, says the former employee in Enerhodar. It once generated 13% of Ukraine’s electricity. After the dam burst it is hard to imagine, she says, how the reactors could be fired up again.has stressed the importance of protecting the plant’s water system. That seems obvious enough. But Russia might decide to create chaos to cover a retreat.
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