VIENNA: The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was taken over by Russian forces last month, has stopped transmitting data to the IAEA, the UN atomic watchdog has said, expressing deep concern for the staff working under Russian troops at the nuclear site in northern Ukraine.
The Chernobyl site is not currently operational and handling of nuclear material has been halted. The facility holds decommissioned reactors, as well as radioactive waste facilities, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, citing information from Ukraine’s nuclear regulator.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi “indicated that remote data transmission from safeguards monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP had been lost,” the Vienna-based agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The Agency is looking into the status of safeguards monitoring systems in other locations in Ukraine and will provide further information soon,” it said.
The agency said it had been informed by Ukrainian officials that it is becoming “increasingly urgent” to rotate staff for the “safe management” of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where some 210 personnel have been working for almost two weeks straight since Russian forces seized control of the facility.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a special military operation against Ukraine.
“In contrast to the current situation for staff at Ukraine’s operating nuclear power plants who are rotating regularly, the same shift has been on duty at the Chernobyl NPP since the day before the Russian military entered the site of the 1986 accident on February 24, in effect living there for the past 13 days,” the statement said, citing Ukraine’s nuclear regulator.
The staff has been effectively living at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster for the past 13 days and while they have access to food, water and medicine to a “limited extent,” their situation is “worsening,” the IAEA said.\
—PTI

Press Trust of India