• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor can still be operated safely.
• But if shelled, there could be a local release of radioactivity.
• That would be of most danger to Russian forces.

An authority on nuclear engineering claims that despite another power outage, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor can still be operated safely.

Professor Michael Fitzpatrick from Coventry University told the media: “I think I can be assuring and say that there really isn’t a comparison with Chernobyl… Chernobyl was initiated by a particular event in disoperation and we’re not in that situation.”

Prof Fitzpatrick said the Zaporizhzhia plant had been completely offline since September and activity at the site is limited to maintaining “a cold shutdown” which involves keeping the reactors and storage facilities safe.

But he said that if the plant were to be shelled directly there could be a local release of radioactivity that would actually “be of most danger to Russian forces in the area”.

What is regarded as the greatest nuclear disaster in history occurred in 1986 at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine.

A steam explosion that blasted the cover off one of the reactors occurred when engineers turned off the power to cooling turbines.

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