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China’s representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, has alerted the Security Council that an accident at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant could be more serious than what happened in Fukushima in 2011.
According to a statement from the Chinese mission to the United Nations, Zhang recalled Thursday that Zaporizhia, in eastern Ukraine, is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and said he did not want “the same risk” to repeat itself.
The Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan took place on March 11, 2011, after an intense earthquake of magnitude 9 on the Richter scale, which caused waves of about 15 meters in height and killed almost 18,000 people.
At an emergency meeting of the Security Council called by Russia, the Chinese representative called on the Russians and Ukrainians to exercise “restraint, act prudently, avoid taking actions that jeopardize nuclear safety“.
Russian troops currently control Zaporizhia, which has come under bombardment this week, with kyiv and Moscow trading accusations over the nature of recent security incidents at the plant.
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The Chinese diplomat showed his support for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to play “an active role” in promoting nuclear safety and security issues.
Zhang Jun also called on Russia and Ukraine to remove “obstacles” placed with a team of IAEA experts to travel to Zaporizhia.
For their part, the Chinese stressed that, after five months of war and knowing the security risks that the conflict poses for nuclear facilities, “just cooling down the situation and restoring peaceas soon as possible, is that nuclear risks can be fundamentally eliminated.”
“Once again, we call on all parties involved to resume negotiations as soon as possible. seek a solution to the crisis in Ukraine with a calm and rational attitudeaddress each other’s legitimate security concerns and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security framework to achieve common security,” Zhang said.
At the same meeting, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said preliminary analyzes indicated there was no “immediate threat” to nuclear security following the attacks on Zaporizhia, but warned that the situation was serious and “could change.” ” quickly.
Source: Observadora
