IAEA Head: Zaporizhzhya NPP Back to Emergency Mode, Situation Threatening

In the wake of another Russian missile attack IAEA head Rafael Grossi warned that a nuclear disaster of global scale is getting closer with each passing day. “This morning at around 5am local time Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost all off-site power when its last remaining 750 kilovolt line was disconnected, its only remaining back up 330 kilovolt line having been damaged a few days ago and under repair,” he said Thursday, bbc.com reports. He said all 20 of the site’s emergency diesel generators were activated, eight of which are providing power to the nuclear plant, and the rest are in standby mode. Grossi stressed that this is the sixth time since the beginning of the war that Zaporizhzhya NPP has been switched to the emergency operation mode. The last complete disconnection of the plant from external power supply was on November 23 last year. The situation around Zaporizhzhya NPP is one of the most perilous episodes of this war. The station came under Russia’s control in the first days of the invasion. IAEA experts have long sounded the alarm that the Russian military is building unclear facilities on its territory in close proximity to nuclear reactors. In addition, occasional shelling of the Zaporizhzhia region continues. The parties blame each other for noncompliance with nuclear safety measures. “Let me remind you – this is the largest nuclear power station in Europe. What are we doing? How can we sit here in this room this morning and allow this to happen? This cannot go on,” Rafael Grossi said. He admitted that the IAEA is not doing enough to prevent a potential disaster. “Each time we are rolling a dice. One day our luck will run out,” he warned.