The top nuclear dog over at U.N. HQ is running around from office-to-office with his hands full of reports and screaming. He keeps going on and on about some “extremely grave and dangerous” atomic catastrophe that’s going to hit the Zaporizhzhya plant in Ukraine, any moment now. He makes it sound like we’re looking at Chernobyl mixed with Three Mile Island.
Nuclear ‘zap‘ and vaporization
Europe is in for a vaporizing zap from the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, terrified United Nations experts are warning. As far as Rafael Grossi can tell, the facility “is completely out of control.” He’s the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
On Tuesday, August 2, Grossi “issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation.” If they don’t get their quick, expect a serious atomic accident.
The situation, he told Associated Press, “is getting more perilous every day.” Located near the southeastern city of Enerhodar, Russian troops seized control in early March. They aren’t running it well.
“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated. What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.” Along with a laundry list of violations he knows about, it’s not helping things that it is “in a place where active war is ongoing.” Containment vessels aren’t meant to stand up to repeated shelling.
According to Grossi, the Russians have no respect at all for the physical integrity of the nuclear power plant. Compounding the challenge, untrained and nervous soldiers are forcing Ukrainian staff to work at gunpoint. That leads to “inevitable moments of friction and alleged violence.”
Any contact the IAEA has with the workers, is “faulty” and “patchy.” The supply chain was blown to smithereens so spare parts aren’t arriving. They’re “not sure the plant is getting all it needs.” Obviously, cutting safety corners is not a good thing.
Protecting the goodies
Along with basic safety of the operation, there is a whole lot of radioactive material laying around, of various concentrations. All of it could be used to start an awful lot of trouble. “When you put this together, you have a catalog of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility.”
He’s been warning about it for a long time but now he’s getting desperate. “This is why I have been insisting from day one that we have to be able to go there to perform this safety and security evaluation, to do the repairs and to assist as we already did in Chernobyl.” Those who don’t know history are forced to make those who do know watch them repeat it.
Speaking of Chernobyl, the last time Grossi got to visit that nuclear nightmare museum was on April 27. That day, he tweeted “level of safety was like a red light blinking.” They were able to set up an “assistance mission” there which “has been very, very successful so far.”
He says they really need to do that in Zaporizhzhya. “Ascertain the facts of what is actually happening there, to carry out repairs and inspections.”
The biggest goal is prevent a nuclear accident which is clearly imminent. Grossi and his team can’t go in there without a whole lot of protection and a promise of free passage from the enemy.
“The IAEA, by its presence, will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant,” Grossi relates. “So I’m pleading as an international civil servant, as the head of an international organization, I’m pleading to both sides to let this mission proceed.“
