Powerful explosions rocked the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on Sunday, home to Europe's largest nuclear plant, the United Nations nuclear agency said.
"Measures are urgently needed to help prevent a nuclear accident," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, reported that two explosions —one on Saturday night and the other on Sunday morning— near the Zaporizhzhia plant abruptly interrupted a period of relative calm on the premises of
the facility that has been scene of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces
since the start of the war.
A column of smoke rises during a fire caused by a Russian attack in Kherson, southern Ukraine, on Saturday, November 19, 2022. Roman Hrytsyna / AP
Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been raised ever since Russian forces occupied the plant at the start of the invasion.
Continued fighting there has raised the possibility of disaster.
[Poland considers it likely that the missile that hit its territory and killed two people was fired from Ukraine]
In what appeared to be a new shelling at the site, IAEA experts there reported hearing more than a dozen explosions in a brief space on Sunday morning, the statement said, adding that the IAEA team was able to see the explosions from the windows of their offices.
Several buildings, systems and equipment — none essential to the safety of the plant — were damaged, the IAEA said, citing information from plant management.
No casualties were reported.
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Grossi said the reports of the explosions are “extremely disturbing” and “whoever is behind this must stop immediately.
As I have said on several occasions, they are playing with fire."
Grossi asked the two sides in the conflict to reach an agreement regarding the creation of a security perimeter around the nuclear plant.
Russia has been bombing the Ukrainian power grid and other infrastructure from the air, causing blackouts for millions of Ukrainians amid the cold and snowy winter.
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Elsewhere in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces shelled civilian infrastructure in a dozen communities, destroying some 30 homes, the Ukrainian presidency said on Sunday.
In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, one person was injured and some 20 buildings were damaged in Nikopol, a city across the river from the Zaporizhzhia plant, the report said.
Three districts in the Kharkiv region - Kupyansk, Chuhuiv and Izyum - have also been attacked by Russian artillery in the past 24 hours.
