VIENNA: No damage was done to the reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant and there was no release of radioactive material after a projectile hit a nearby building on the site overnight, UN atomic chief Rafael Grossi said on Friday.
Two members of security staff were injured when the projectile hit overnight after the Ukrainian authorities reported a battle with Russian troops near Europe’s biggest power plant, which is operating at just a small fraction of its capacity with one of its six units still running.
“What we understand is that this projectile is a projectile that is coming from the Russian forces. We do not have details about the kind of projectile,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi told a news conference.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday blamed the attack on Ukrainian “saboteurs.”
Grossi showed an overhead shot of the facility with the training facility that was hit close to but clearly separate from the row of reactor buildings.
The radiation monitoring system at the site was functioning normally and there had been no release of radioactive material, Grossi said.
He suggested meeting Russian and Ukrainian officials at defunct power plant Chernobyl, where Russia has seized the radioactive waste facilities near the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, so that they could commit not to do anything to endanger nuclear security in Ukraine.
Staff on duty at Chernobyl have not been rotated out since it was seized last week despite repeated appeals by Grossi. The situation at Zaporozhzhia was similar in that Russia controls it but Ukrainian staff continue to operate it.
“For the time being it is purely Ukrainian staff running the operations there. What we have in this case as we speak this morning at quarter to 11 what we have is in Chernobyl and in Zaporozhzhia we have effective control of the site in the hands of Russian military forces. I hope the distinction is clear,” Grossi said.
UN atomic agency: Strike at nuke plant hit training center
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UN atomic agency: Strike at nuke plant hit training center
- He said there has been no release of radiation and that the fire had been extinguished
- Two people on the site were injured in the fire
Two Turkish tourists killed in Ethiopia
- Southwestern Ethiopia is home to semi-nomadic herders, notably from the Suri and Surma tribes, who are often armed to defend their herds
ADDIS ABABA: Two Turkish tourists and their Ethiopian driver have been killed by armed herders in southwestern Ethiopia, regional authorities said late on Monday, describing the attack as a “heinous act.”
The attack took place in the Suri district, about 330 km southwest of the capital Addis Ababa, and was carried out by “pastoralist bandits” on Monday morning, authorities in the Southwest region said on Facebook.
They did not give further details of the circumstances.
Southwestern Ethiopia is home to semi-nomadic herders, notably from the Suri and Surma tribes, who are often armed to defend their herds.
Regional authorities said they were conducting a “major law enforcement operation” to “pursue and bring to justice the bandits who committed this heinous act.”
Ethiopia, which emerged in 2022 from a bloody civil war in the northern Tigray region, is seeking to attract international tourists as it looks to diversify its largely state-led economy.
The Horn of Africa nation — the second most populous on the continent with around 130 million people — continues to face armed conflicts in its two most populous regions, Oromia and Amhara.
