The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had inspected the damaged cooling tower at Zaporizhzhia NPP but could not immediately determine the cause of the fire that occurred there on 11 August. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to Reuters.
The IAEA said that the agency’s experts found no immediate signs of the drone’s remains and assessed that it was unlikely that the fire originated at the base of the cooling tower.
“The team was unable to draw definitive conclusions about the cause of the fire based on the data and observations obtained,” the IAEA said.
The agency’s experts also emphasise that the damage was most likely concentrated in the interior of the tower at the level of the water nozzle distribution, at a height of approximately 10 metres.
“The team confirmed that there were no significant signs of disturbance to the debris, ash or soot located at the base of the cooling tower,” the statement said.
On the evening of 11 August, President Zelenskyy reported a fire on the territory of Zaporizhzhia NPP. According to the head of the Nikopol district military administration, Yevhen Yevtushenko, the Russian military burned a large number of car tyres in the cooling tower of the station. The fire has now stopped.
ZNPP
Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the third largest in the world by total capacity. Located in the Zaporizhzhia region near the city of Enerhodar, it consists of six nuclear power units of 1 GW each. Construction began in 1981, and the first unit was commissioned in 1984. The last unit, the sixth, was commissioned in 1995.
ZNPP annually produced about 40 billion kWh of electricity, which was about 20% of Ukraine’s total power generation. It is also the first nuclear power plant in the country to have a dry spent fuel storage facility.
The Russian army seized ZNPP on the night of 4 March 2022, having previously shelled the nuclear facility. Russia has also occupied the city of Enerhodar, near which the plant is located.
Since the beginning of the Russian occupation, Zaporizhzhia NPP has experienced eight full blackouts and one partial blackout, with emergency diesel generators and safety systems being launched. According to Energoatom, their failure threatens to cause an emergency.
The last time the plant faced the threat of blackout was on 22 March this year after Russia’s massive shelling of Ukrainian energy facilities.
Read our article to find out whether the fire at ZNPP is related to the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Kursk offensive:
DISCUSSION FROM TheUkrainian Armed Forces advance in Kursk region, and a fire breaks out at Zaporizhzhia NPP: are these events related and what to expect next?