KYIV (Reuters) – The water level at a reservoir in southern Ukraine is approaching a dangerous low after the destruction of the dam at the nearby Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station, the state company overseeing the facility said on Thursday.
Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for the collapse of the dam on Tuesday, which unleashed flood water from the Dnipro River on a wide area of southern Ukraine.
Ihor Syrota, general director of Ukrhydroenergo, told Ukrainian television that a drop below the current water level at the Kakhovka Reservoir could affect the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station and water supply to other regions.
“We are reaching this dead zone, which is 12.70 (meters), after which there will be not be any water intake either for the cooling ponds at the Zaporizhzhia station…or…for all regions.”
The U.N. atomic watchdog said on Tuesday the plant, Europe’s largest, has enough water to cool its reactors for “several months” from a pond located above the reservoir.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said on Thursday the situation was “stable and under control” at the Zaporizhzhia plant on Thursday morning.
Syrota added that Ukrhydroenergo was ready to work on an overlay across the damaged hydroelectric station and dam as soon as Russian forces left the eastern side of the Dnipro, and that it would take about two months to complete.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
