Ukraine: What a catastrophe at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant would mean for Germany
Created: 08/18/2022, 11:45 am
By: Tanja Koch
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is under fire.
Russia and Ukraine blame each other.
(Archive photo) © Uncredited / AP / dpa
Concerns are growing in Europe about a catastrophe at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
But what exactly could happen there?
Kyiv/Brussels – Bullets keep falling on the site of Europe's largest nuclear power plant.
The Russian army has occupied the nuclear power plant, which has six of Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors, since March.
However, Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the shelling.
The situation in Zaporizhia has been worrying the international community for weeks, and fears of a nuclear catastrophe are growing.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had already urgently called for the facility to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The fact that Russian troops control the facility creates "the risk of a nuclear accident or incident."
Dozens of Ukrainian rescue workers recently prepared for such an accident during special first-aid training, reporters from the
AFP
news agency reported .
The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope
View photo gallery
In the city of Zaporizhia, which is about 50 kilometers as the crow flies from the nuclear power plant, they practiced evacuating the injured and cleaning contaminated vehicles in protective clothing with radiation meters and gas masks.
According to Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, who took part in the exercises, the country needs to prepare for "all possible scenarios" at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhia: That would be the worst-case scenario
But what do these possible scenarios look like?
What specifically threatens in the event of an accident in the nuclear power plant?
And what consequences would it have for Germany?
Probably the greatest risk is damage to the reactor pressure vessel of a running plant.
"That would be dark red," quotes
Spiegel Online
Clemens Walther, professor at the University of Hanover and executive director of the Institute for Radioecology and Radiation Protection.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently said that hitting an operating nuclear power plant would be as bad as a tactical nuclear weapon.
In fact, in the event of such an accident, even more radioactivity could be released and, above all, transported over long distances.”
also read
Ex-intelligence chief: Vladimir Putin will experience an 'unpleasant end'
China sends soldiers to Russia for military exercises - 'Responding to security threats'
Ukraine war: Accident in Zaporizhia could, in the worst case, also have consequences for Germany
Depending on the wind direction and the weather, there could also be increased radioactivity in Germany.
In the case of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, this led to game meat and grain being contaminated.
However, since the reactors in Ukraine are so well protected that they can withstand a military plane crashing in case of doubt, such an accident is probably the most unlikely.
"This is hardly conceivable as a result of a simple accident - for example through scattered projectiles that graze and damage the reactor building," Walther explains to
Spiegel
Online.
As the expert explains, a power failure at the nuclear power plant is more likely.
This would prevent the fuel rods from being cooled - Fukushima-type meltdowns occur.
On the one hand, in contrast, there are mobile emergency generators in Zaporizhia.
In the extreme case, "the molten core would normally flow into the large concrete basement of the building, radioactivity would then hardly escape to the outside." Damage to spent fuel elements stored on the nuclear power plant site can also be controlled.
If it comes under fire as part of the Ukraine war, fragments could be thrown a few hundred meters.
(tk with dpa/afp)
