(Reuters) -The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said on Thursday the process had started to restore external power to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, cut off from the electricity grid for more than two weeks.
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the process had begun after consultation with authorities in Ukraine and Russia, who blame each other for the downing of the external lines.
Russian forces seized the plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, in the first weeks of the Kremlin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The plant produces no electricity, but each side regularly accuses the other of military actions compromising nuclear safety.
“Following intensive consultations, the process leading to the re-establishment of off-site power…has started,” Grossi said in a statement on the IAEA website.
“While it will still take some time before the grid connection of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been restored, the two sides have engaged with us in a constructive way to achieve this important objective for the sake of nuclear safety and security.”
Since the last external link went down on September 23, the plant has relied on emergency diesel generators to ensure that fuel inside the reactors is cooled and no meltdown occurs.
In his statement, Grossi said that IAEA monitors stationed at the plant reported hearing five explosions in succession on Thursday, “occurring close to the site and shaking windows in their building”.
Grossi also said the decommissioned Chornobyl nuclear power station, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, remained without an external power line. Ukraine said the plant, now supplied by other power sources, lost the line because of a Russian attack on an electrical substation in a nearby town.
Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying there were no grounds to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for now in the absence of an external power source.
Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom was quoted earlier as saying it was preparing to restart the plant.
(Reporting by Harshita Meenaktshi in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Chopra, Ron Popeski and Alistair Bell)
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