FOG BLOG UKRAINE LOG: POWER SUPPLY TO ZAPORIZHZHIA PLANT CUT BY SHELLING, USING EMERG. GENERATORS:

Shelling again damages power lines at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Shelling once again compromised the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, damaging a power line that supplies electricity to one of the plant’s six reactors, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said on Friday.

The bombardment, which hit an industrial area outside the plant, severed the reactor’s connection to a 150-kilovolt backup line and forced into operation five diesel generators for about 90 minutes, the International Atomic Energy Agency said, but did not affect the unit’s core cooling. It was the second time in two weeks, the agency said, that electricity to that reactor had been interrupted. The plant must sometimes rely on lines connecting it to the power grid to provide electricity to cooling systems, and if those external lines are cut, as they have been several times in recent months because of shelling, engineers must turn to diesel generators. Even though it was forced to draw power from emergency sources only temporarily, the episode only reinforced how the facility, the largest in Europe, remains in a precarious state near the front lines, with the potential for fighting to cause a radiation leak of a nuclear meltdown always looming.

The Kremlin’s recent announcement that it would be placing the plant under control of the Russian state has created even more unease. Ukrainian nuclear engineers have been running operations at the plant for months, addressing one crisis after another since Russian forces seized it in March. “Again and again, the plant’s courageous, skilled and experienced operators find solutions to overcome the severe problems that keep occurring because of the conflict,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said in a statement. “However, this is not a sustainable way to run a nuclear power plant. There is an urgent need to create a more stable environment for the plant and its staff.”