KYIV (Reuters) – United Nations nuclear chief Rafael Grossi was due in Kyiv on Tuesday on a trip to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and visit Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after a huge river dam nearby was destroyed last week.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sunday it needed access to a site near the plant to check water levels after the reservoir lost a large portion of its volume of water because of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam downstream.
Kyiv says Russia blew up the dam in southern Ukraine last week, leading to catastrophic flooding and forcing thousands of people from their homes. Russia says Ukraine was responsible for the destruction.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant uses a cooling pond to keep its six reactors cool. Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said on Tuesday that the level of the pond was stable and that the water was high enough.
As of Tuesday morning, the water level stood at 16.67 metres (54.69 feet), which Energoatom said was “quite enough to meet the needs of the station”.
The Kakhovka reservoir is normally used to refill the pond, but cannot now because of its falling water level, Ukrainian nuclear authorities say.
Instead, the pond, which is separated from the reservoir, can be replenished using deep underground wells, they say.
The water in the pond is also expended very slowly, they add, because the reactors are not producing power and water does not evaporate quickly during the cooling process.
Both the Kakhovka hydropower dam and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have been occupied by Russia since the early days of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; editing by Tom Balmforth and Gareth Jones)
