Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant On Fire: We’re all going to die

Europe’s largest nuclear plant is on fire after Russia attacked the power station in the southern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, a spokesperson said.

A government official told The Associated Press elevated levels of radiation are being detected near the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which provides about 25 per cent of Ukraine’s power generation.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly released.

Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television it is urgent to stop the fighting to put out the flames.

Enerhodar is a city on the Dnieper River that accounts for one-quarter of the country’s power generation…

The mayor of Enerhodar said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts.

Video showed flames and black smoke rising above the city of more than 50,000, with people streaming past wrecked cars, just a day after the UN atomic watchdog agency expressed grave concern that the fighting could cause accidental damage to Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors.

Mayor Dmytro Orlov and the Ukrainian state atomic energy company reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late Thursday.

“Many young men in athletic clothes and armed with Kalashnikovs have come into the city. They are breaking down doors and trying to get into the apartments of local residents,” the statement from Energoatom said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on the West to close the skies over the country’s nuclear plants as fighting intensified.

“It is a question of the security of the whole world!” he said in a statement.
The US and NATO allies have ruled out creating a no-fly zone since the move would pit Russian and Western military forces against each other.

United States Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm says reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station are “protected by robust containment structures and reactors are being safely shut down”.

Granholm posted an update on Twitter saying she had just spoken with Ukraine’s energy minister about the situation at the plant, where a fire broke out during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

She also says no elevated radiation readings have been recorded near the facility.