A senior US Department of Energy official said Friday the “immediate crisis is over” and that sensors around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are not indicating any radiation leakage.
“The immediate crisis is over in that we’ve got sensors, both sensors around the plant as well as IAEA sensors, they’re not showing any radiation leakage. And the parts of the power plant that we are most focused on, electricity, generators, diesel backups, and then the containment vessel itself, have not been damaged as far as we can tell from the information that we have so far,” the senior Energy Department official told reporters on a call.
The official also noted the Energy Department is “engaging extensively with our Ukrainian colleagues, with others, not only on this particular nuclear power plant, which is the largest in Europe, but other nuclear power plants, which provide about 60% of Ukrainians electricity, so nuclear power is an important part of their grid and mix.”
The Energy Department official further underscored how “we’re trying to make very clear to Russia the importance of protecting the civilian nuclear power plants and not doing anything that could cause a real incident going forward.”
Asked whether Russia might shut off power, the official said: “Russia is going to do what Russia is going to do, and we will help our Ukrainian colleagues along those lines to deal with any eventuality.”
