Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest

R&I – FS

A huge blaze at the site of Europe’s biggest nuclear power station was extinguished on Friday, and officials said the plant in southeastern Ukraine was operating normally after it was seized by Russian forces in fighting that caused global alarm.

Separately, the governor of Mykolayiv said Russian troops had entered his city of around 500,000 people but a presidential adviser later said the Russian advance had been halted.

The city, a ship-building hub, is in southern Ukraine where Russian forces have made the most progress so far, and if captured it would be the biggest yet to fall.

Officials said the fire at the Zaporizhzhia compound was in a training centre and not at the plant itself. An official at Energoatom, the state enterprise that runs Ukraine’s four nuclear plants, said there was no further fighting, the fire was out, radiation was normal and Russian forces were in control.

“Personnel are on their working places providing normal operation of the station,” the official told Reuters in a message.

He said his organisation no longer had communication with the plant’s managers, control over the radiation situation there or oversight of potentially dangerous nuclear material in its six reactors and about 150 containers of spent fuel.

Russia’s defence ministry also said the plant was working normally. It blamed the fire on a “monstrous attack” by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.

RandyMarsh

Article URL : https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/top-wrap-1-europes-largest-nuclear-power-plant-fire-after-russian-attack-mayor-2022-03-04/