On Friday night, a fire broke out at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in eastern Ukraine.
Although If a nuclear reactor were damaged in Ukraine, Finland would probably not be exposed to radiation causing serious harm. That’s what the deputy director says Tomi Routamo From the Nuclear Power Plant Supervision Department of the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Stuk).
“It is not expected that radioactive substances will be transported to Finland to such an extent that protection will be needed here,” he tells HS.
Stuk will talk about the effects of the situation in Ukraine at a press conference that started at 11 am on Tuesday. HS shows the opportunity live in this story.
Friday night A fire broke out at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in eastern Ukraine. The fire broke out when Russian troops besieged the nuclear power plant.
The fire caught fire in the five-story administration and training building of the nuclear power plant and did not directly affect the operation of the nuclear reactors. Radiation values in the area have not risen, several parties said.
Ukrainian authorities said in the morning at half past seven on Friday that the fire had been put out. There were fears that it could have spread to reactor buildings as well.
Read more: The events of the night before Friday: a fire broke out at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant at night
Ukraine president Volodymr Zelenskyi has accused Russia of trying to repeat the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, news agency AFP reports. Zelenskyi stressed that “no country other than Russia has ever fired on nuclear power plants”.
However, according to Routamo, large-scale and serious effects such as the Chernobyl accident are unlikely.
It was a very different event, as the power of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl rose above normal in the test.
“The reactor power ran out of hand, which damaged the reactor,” Routamo says.
The Ukrainian plants are similar water-cooled power plants to the Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland. In them, the power of the reactor decreases if the cooling water is removed for some reason.
In addition, there was graphite in the Chernobyl reactor at the time, which burned for many days and lifted the radioactive material high into the air. This spread the radiation over a wide area.
In nuclear power plants preparing for external threats such as earthquakes and even airplane collisions. Ukraine also participated in stress tests carried out in Europe on nuclear power plants following the Fukushima accident in the early 2010s.
There are containment buildings around the nuclear reactors that are meant to remain airtight even in severe situations. However, reactors are not usually made to withstand military shocks.
“The most difficult situation is, of course, if the containment is damaged in such an attack. In that case, it will not be possible to contain any substances released from the reactor. “
Routamo emphasizes, however, that damage to the containment would not necessarily result in damage to the reactor itself.
At worst the shock could cause the reactor core to melt. That is what happened in Fukushima, for example.
Normally, in the event of a fault, the reactor can be shut down in advance and cooled down quickly. The question, however, is what could be done about it in a war situation.
“Yes, it could have serious radiation consequences in the plant area and the surrounding area,” says Routamo.
It is a question of how to react to a disturbance in a war situation. Normally, the reactor could be shut down in advance.
Routamon according to which there would be immediate radiation effects in the immediate vicinity of the power plant, and the potential long-term effects would extend to a radius of tens or even a hundred kilometers.
Last week, it was reported that iodine tablets ran out of many pharmacies. Routamo emphasizes that there is no need to take iodine tablets in Finland.
Should the real situation occur, the iodine tablet should only be taken as instructed by the authority. The iodine tablet only protects the thyroid gland, and in the event of an emergency, the primary means of protection is to move indoors.
Read more: Iodine tablets were sold off from pharmacy shelves in the Helsinki metropolitan area
How worried about Ukraine’s nuclear power plants should now be?
“I would see that direct warfare does so much damage that it is not quite comparable to what a nuclear accident could become,” Routamo says.
“But if a nuclear accident happened on it, it would make the situation even more difficult.”
The Zaporizhia attack was preceded by last week’s fighting in the closed area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on Russia not to strike at or near nuclear power plants.
Zaporizhia The power plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and at the same time the whole of Europe in terms of power generation.
The plant has six thousand-megawatt nuclear reactors. On Friday morning, according to Ukrainian authorities, only one of them was in operation. As a precaution, some of the reactors were disconnected from the mains and started to be cooled.
There are four operating nuclear power plants in Ukraine with a total of 15 reactors. Some of the reactors are out of service as the country’s electricity consumption has decreased as a result of the war.
Ukraine’s nuclear power plants are irrelevant to the EU or Russian electricity markets. Ukraine has disconnected its electricity grid from the Russian grid and is not yet part of the European electricity grid. However, EU countries have decided to speed up Ukraine’s connection to the European electricity grid.
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