(Vienna) The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine continues to pump water from the Kakhovka dam to cool the fuel and avoid an accident, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Thursday ( IAEA).
The destruction of the dam on the Dnieper River prompted the evacuation of thousands of civilians from the flooded areas and raised concern for the Russian-occupied site of Zaporizhia, which is 150 km upstream.
After examination, it turned out that the pumping operations should “be able to continue even if the level fell below the current threshold of 12.7 meters”, previously considered critical, explained the UN body in a press release, which now sets the limit at “11 meters or even lower”.
“In these difficult circumstances, this gives us a little more time before possibly moving on to other sources of supply”, underlined the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi, expected on the spot next week.
When the dam can no longer be used, the plant will be able to use “a large retention basin located nearby as well as smaller reserves and on-site wells that can provide cooling water for several months “.
“It is vital that this basin remains intact.” “Nothing should be done to undermine its integrity,” warned Mr. Grossi earlier this week during a meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors in Vienna.
The situation remains “very precarious and potentially dangerous”, he insisted on Thursday.
It is necessary to constantly cool the fuel in the reactor cores as well as that placed in the storage pools to avoid a meltdown accident and radioactive releases into the environment.
Staff have already introduced measures to restrict water consumption, using it only for “essential activities related to nuclear security”.
The IAEA, which has a team of experts on site, demanded access to the place where the water level in the tank is measured, “so that it can carry out independent verifications”.
Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of the destruction of the dam, which occurred on Tuesday.
The Zaporizhia power station, the largest in Europe, is at the heart of the conflict: it has been targeted several times by gunfire and has been cut off from the electricity grid seven times since it was taken by the Russian army on 4 March 2022, ten days after the start of the invasion of Ukraine