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The United Nations' atomic watchdog is actively monitoring potential damage inflicted upon sites linked to two of the world's worst nuclear disasters now located on the front lines of war and natural disaster.
After the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority issued a warning of potential damage to the Fukushima Daini and Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants due to an earthquake, and a tsunami warning near the country on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shared a statement with Newsweek confirming that the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority reported "a 7.3 magnitude #earthquake occurred ~60 km off the eastern coast of Japan at 14:36 UTC."
"The safety status of nuclear facilities in the area will be inspected and further updates will be provided to the IAEA," according to the IAEA.
The latest Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority emergency alert stated that at least two water pumps at the Daini's spent fuel pool had stopped and fire alarms were activated at the Daiichi sister site.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the plant, said that, based on accounts of on-site employees, "it was confirmed that there were no abnormalities such as fire and smoke" following the alarm at the Daiichi site. And "no significant fluctuations in the monitoring post have been confirmed at this time" at the Daini site, TEPCO said in a statement referred to Newsweek.
The company also said that power had been restored following an outage that reportedly affected some two million people.
The issue came less than a week after the 11th anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Fukushima prefecture, causing severe damage to the Daiichi plant, leading to a power failure and flooding that created mass contamination across the prefecture and beyond.
The incident was ultimately classified as a "Category 7" or "major" nuclear disaster, only the second in history to be categorized as such after a 1986 failed safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine triggered a nuclear reaction, releasing massive waves of radiation still today considered the worst nuclear accident in history.
Parts of Chernobyl are still surrounded by an exclusion zone off-limits to the general public, but Russian troops seized the site late last month amid what was reported to be heightened radiation levels that the IAEA said was likely attributed to still-contaminated soil being uplifted by the movement of heavy vehicles.
About a week later, new nuclear fears arose in Ukraine as a battle ensued for control of Europe's largest atomic plant, Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, causing reported damage to administrative facilities located near nuclear fuel storage sites.
The IAEA spokesperson said the agency is "providing regular updates on the situation in Ukraine," the latest of which came after a meeting Tuesday between senior IAEA and European Union officials.
The annual gathering had been postponed and the IAEA said that now "nuclear safety and security in Ukraine topped the agenda."
"EU Special Envoy for Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Marjolijn van Deelen, conveyed the EU's 'grave concern over the growing nuclear safety and security risks in Ukraine, as a result of Russia's military aggression and indiscriminate attacks on several nuclear sites,' and reaffirmed the EU's full support for the initiative of IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to ensure the safety and security of all nuclear facilities in Ukraine," according to the IAEA readout.
"The EU remains categorically committed to defending multilateralism, especially at this time when its foundations are being questioned," she added. "The EU's support for the implementation of the IAEA's mandate remains strong."
A day earlier, the IAEA cited Grossi as saying that Ukraine had informed the agency that Chernobyl "had been re-connected to the national electricity grid and no longer relied on emergency diesel generators for power" following an outage last week. He said that Ukrainian specialists continued to work at the site, though under the supervision of Russian forces and "under enormous stress without the necessary rest."
"On the status of Ukraine's four operational nuclear power plants, the regulator said eight of the country's 15 reactors remained operating, including two at the Zaporizhzhya NPP, three at Rivne, one at Khmelnytskyy, and two at South Ukraine. The radiation levels at all NPPs are in the normal range, it said," according to the report released Monday.
The IAEA said at the time that it was "still not receiving remote data transmission from its monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP, but such data was being transferred to IAEA headquarters from the other NPPs in Ukraine."
The above graphic was provided by Statista.
This is a developing news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.
About the writer
Based in his hometown of Staten Island, New York City, Tom O'Connor is an award-winning Senior Writer of Foreign Policy ... Read more