UN atomic watchdog expresses alarm over shelling of Chernobyl staff town

By AFP 25 March 2022, 1:04 am Edit

In this April 27, 2021 photo, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi in front of a shelter construction which covers the exploded reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Chernobyl, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

The International Atomic Energy Agency expresses “concern” after Ukraine warned of bombardment by Russia of the town where staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear site live.

“Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today that Russian forces were shelling Ukrainian checkpoints in the city of Slavutych where many people working at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant live, putting them at risk,” the Vienna-based UN agency says in a statement.

Its director-general Rafael Grossi says the incident came “just a few days after technical staff at the Chornobyl (plant) were finally able to rotate and go to their homes in Slavutych and rest after working for nearly four weeks without a change of shift”.

Russian forces took control of the plant — the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history in 1986 — on February 24.

About 100 Ukrainian technicians then continued to run the daily operations at the radioactive site for nearly four weeks without being rotated.