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World

Pakistan begins restoring power after second major grid breakdown in months

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s government began restoring power to millions of people on Monday after a breakdown in the grid triggered the worst electricity outage in months and highlighted the weak infrastructure of the heavily indebted nation.

An inquiry has been launched into the outage, which began at around 7:00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) and has so far lasted more than 12 hours during the peak winter season.

As evening drew on and homes were without electricity in the dark, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir wrote on Twitter that authorities had started restoring power across the country.

Dastgir had told reporters earlier: “We have faced some hurdles but we will overcome these hurdles, and will restore the power.”

The outage, which the minister had said was due to a voltage surge, is the second major grid failure in three months, and adds to the blackouts that Pakistan’s nearly 220 million people suffer on an almost-daily basis.

Power was beginning to return in parts of the capital Islamabad and the southwest province of Balochistan, said Dastgir.

Pakistan’s largest city and economic hub Karachi is likely to see electricity restored in the next three to four hours, a spokesperson for K-Electric Ltd (KELE.PSX), the southern city’s power provider, said.

[1/5] A man sits outside his shop during a country-wide power breakdown in Karachi, Pakistan January 23, 2023. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

Analysts and officials blame the power problems on an ageing electricity network, which like much of the national infrastructure, desperately needs an upgrade that the government says it can ill afford.

The International Monetary Fund has bailed out Pakistan five times in the last two decades. Its latest bailout tranche, however, is stuck due to differences with the government over a programme review that should have been completed in November.

Pakistan has enough installed power capacity to meet demand, but it lacks resources to run its oil-and-gas powered plants. The sector is so heavily in debt that it cannot afford to invest in infrastructure and power lines. China has invested in its power sector as part of a $60 billion infrastructure scheme that feeds into Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative.

“We have been adding capacity, but we have been doing so without improving transmission infrastructure,” said Fahad Rauf, head of research at Karachi brokerage Ismail Iqbal Industries.

The outage occurred on a winter’s day where temperatures are forecast to fall to around 4 degrees Celsius (39°F) in Islamabad and 8 degrees Celsius (46°F) in Karachi.

Many people also have no running water due to a lack of power for the pumps.

Earlier, Dastgir told Reuters the grid should be fully functioning by 10:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).

The outage hit Internet and mobile phone services. Several companies and hospitals said they had switched to back-up generators, but disruptions continued across the board.

Reporting by Asif Shahazad, Ariba Shahid and Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam, additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Charlotte Greenfield in Kabul; writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Miral Fahmy and Shivam Patel; editing by Sudipto Ganguly, Simon Cameron-Moore and Bernadette Baum

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World

UK’s National Grid to pay people to use less power amid cold snap

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LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Britain’s National Grid (NG.L) said it would pay customers to use less power on Monday evening and that it had asked for three coal-powered generators to be warmed up in case they are needed as the country faces a snap of cold weather.

The group said that it would activate a new scheme called the Demand Flexibility Service where customers get incentives if they agree to use less power during crunch periods.

The service, which has been trialled but not run in a live situation before, would run from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, it said, adding that the move did not mean electricity supplies were at risk and advised people not to worry.

The measures were announced in order to “ensure that everyone gets the electricity they need,” Craig Dyke, Head of National Control at National Grid ESO, told BBC Radio on Monday, adding that 26 suppliers had signed up for the scheme.

[1/2] A British government advert offering people help with winter energy bills is seen on the side of a bus in Stockport, Britain, November 16, 2022. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Below freezing temperatures have been recorded across much of the UK in recent days with the national weather service, the Met Office, last week issuing severe weather warnings for snow and ice.

National Grid’s Dyke said consumers could make small changes to make money by reducing their energy usage, such as delaying cooking or putting on the washing machine until after 6 p.m.

National Grid said in December that over a million British households had signed up to the scheme, which is one of its strategies to help prevent power cuts.

The announcement about the coal-powered generators did not mean they would definitely be used, it said in a separate statement.

Coal-powered generators were last put on stand-by in December when temperatures dropped and demand for energy rose, but they were not needed on that occasion.

Reporting by William Schomberg and Muvija M in London, and Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; editing by Tomasz Janowski, Andrew Heavens, Kirsten Donovan

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US

Blizzard kills 13 in Buffalo, N.Y., area

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Dec 25 (Reuters) – A lethal blizzard paralyzed Buffalo, New York, on Christmas Day, trapping motorists and rescue workers in their vehicles, leaving thousands of homes without power and raising the death toll from storms that have chilled much of the United States for days.

At least 30 people have died in U.S. weather-related incidents, according to an NBC News tally, since a deep freeze gripped most of the nation, coupled with snow, ice and howling winds from a sprawling storm that roared out of the Great Lakes region on Friday.

CNN has reported a total of 26 weather fatalities.

Much of the loss of life has centered in and around Buffalo at the edge of Lake Erie in western New York, as numbing cold and heavy “lake-effect” snow – the result of frigid air moving over warmer lake waters – persisted through the holiday weekend.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the storm’s confirmed death toll climbed to 13 on Sunday, up from three reported overnight in the Buffalo region. The latest victims included some found in cars and some in snow banks, Poloncarz said, adding that the death tally would likely rise further.

“This is not the Christmas any of us hoped for nor expected,” Poloncarz said on Twitter on Sunday. “My deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called it an “epic, once-in-a-lifetime” weather disaster that ranked as the fiercest winter storm to hit the greater Buffalo area since a crippling 1977 blizzard that killed nearly 30 people.

“We have now surpassed the scale of that storm, in its intensity, the longevity, the ferocity of its winds,” Hochul told an evening news conference, adding that the current storm would likely to go down in history as “the blizzard of ’22.”

RESCUING THE RESCUERS

The latest blizzard came nearly six weeks after a record-setting but shorter-lived lake-effect storm struck western New York.

Despite a ban on road travel imposed since Friday, hundreds of Erie County motorists were stranded in their vehicles over the weekend, with National Guard troops called in to help with rescues hindered by white-out conditions and drifting snow, Poloncarz said.

Many snow plows and other equipment sent on Saturday and Sunday became stuck in the snow, “and we had to send rescue missions to rescue the rescuers,” he told reporters.

The Buffalo police department posted an online plea to the public for assistance in search-and-recovery efforts, asking those who “have a snow mobile and are willing to help” to call a hotline for instructions.

The severity of the storm was notable even for a region accustomed to harsh winter weather.

Christina Klaffka, 39, a North Buffalo resident, watched the shingles blow off her neighbor’s home and listened to her windows rattle from “hurricane-like winds.” She lost power along with her whole neighborhood on Saturday evening, and was still without electricity on Sunday morning.

[1/9] A snow plow is left stranded on the road following a winter storm that hit the Buffalo region on Main St. in Amherst, New York, U.S., December 25, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

“My TV kept flickering while I was trying to watch the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears game. I lost power shortly after the 3rd quarter,” she said.

John Burns, 58, a retiree in North Buffalo, said he and his family were trapped in their house for 36 hours by the storm and extreme cold that he called “mean and nasty.”

“Nobody was out. Nobody was even walking their dogs,” he said. “Nothing was going on for two days.”

Snowfall totals were hard to gauge, he added, because of fierce winds that reduced accumulation between houses, but piled up a 5-foot (1.5-meter) drift “in front of my garage.”

Hochul told reporters on Sunday that the Biden administration had agreed to support her request for a federal disaster declaration.

About 200 National Guard troops were mobilized in western New York to help police and fire crews, conduct wellness checks and bring supplies to shelters, Hochul said.

ELECTRICITY HIT HARD

The larger storm system was moving east on Sunday, after knocking out power to as many as 1.5 million customers at the height of outages late last week and forcing thousands of commercial flight cancellations during the busy holiday travel period.

More than 150,000 U.S. homes and businesses were without power on Sunday, down sharply from the 1.8 million without power as of early Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. In Buffalo, 15,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening, Poloncarz said.

He said one electrical substation knocked offline was sealed off by an 18-foot-tall mound of snow, and utility crews found the entire facility frozen inside.

Christmas Day temperatures, while beginning to rebound from near-zero readings that were widespread on Saturday, remained well below average across the central and eastern United States, and below freezing even as far south as the Gulf Coast, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Rich Otto said.

Nearly 4 feet of snow was measured at Buffalo airport by Sunday, according to the latest NWS tally, with white-out conditions lingering south of Buffalo into the afternoon as continuing squalls dumped 2-3 inches of snow an hour.

In Kentucky, officials confirmed three storm-related deaths since Friday, while at least four people were dead and several injured in auto-related accidents in Ohio, where a 50-vehicle pileup shut down the Ohio Turnpike during a blizzard on Friday.

Other deaths related to extreme cold or weather-induced vehicle accidents were reported in Missouri, Tennessee, Kansas and Colorado, according to news reports.

(The story has been refiled to remove extraneous word in headline)

Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali, Ismail Shakil, Rick Cowan and ; Writing by Steve Gorman; editing by Ross Colvin, Diane Craft, Nick Zieminski, Leslie Adler, Gerry Doyle and Bradley Perrett

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Ahmed Aboulenein

Thomson Reuters

Washington-based correspondent covering U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical policy with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees such as the Food and Drug Administration, previously based in Iraq and Egypt.

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Business

Thousands lose power after three substations targeted in Washington state, sheriff says

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Dec 25 (Reuters) – Thousands of residents were without power near Tacoma, Washington, after three electrical substations were vandalized, local authorities said on Sunday, adding that it was not yet clear if the Christmas Day incidents were linked.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said robberies were reported at two substations belonging to Tacoma Public Utilities and another belonging to Puget Sound Energy. Deputies cited forced entry into the fenced-in area, with equipment vandalized but nothing taken from the sites, it said. More than 14,000 customers were affected.

“At this time deputies are conducting the initial investigation. We do not have any suspects in custody. It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems,” the department said in a statement on its website.

Earlier this month, a utility in North Carolina reported outages from what local authorities said were orchestrated shootings now being investigated by federal law enforcement.

The FBI has also been investigating shots fired near a power facility in South Carolina days later, and whether those two incidents could be related, NBC News and other local media have reported.

Utilities nationwide have been strained by a severe cold weather system that swept across the country this week, leaving more than 300,000 without power from the winter storm.

In east Piece County, about 2,700 people serviced by Tacoma Public Utilities remained affected midday on Sunday after an initial 7,300 residents lost power in the area, about 45 miles (72 km) south of Seattle, Tacoma Public Utilities said in a post on Twitter.

“We are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore power,” it said, noting that its substations “were attacked” earlier on Sunday morning and that the incidents were reported to police.

Representatives for Puget Sound Energy could not be immediately reached for comment.

Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Leslie Adler

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US

Magnitude 6.4 quake shakes northern California, leaves 2 dead, thousands without power

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RIO DELL, Calif., Dec 20 (Reuters) – A powerful magnitude 6.4 earthquake jolted the extreme northern coast of California before dawn on Tuesday, damaging homes, roads and water systems and leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity.

At least 11 people were reported injured, and two others died from “medical emergencies” that occurred during or just after the quake, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.

The tremor, which struck at 2:30 a.m. PST and was followed by about 80 aftershocks, was centered 215 miles (350 km) north of San Francisco offshore of Humboldt County, a largely rural area known for its redwood forests, local seafood, lumber industry and dairy farms.

The region also is known for relatively frequent seismic activity, although the latest quake appeared to cause more disruption than others in recent years.

Tuesday’s temblor set off one structure fire, which was quickly extinguished, and caused two other buildings to collapse, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

The department said its dispatchers fielded 70 emergency calls after the quake, including one report of a person left trapped who needed rescuing, spokesperson Tran Beyea said.

Details on quake-related casualties was sketchy, but one surviving victim was a child with a head injury and the other an older person with a broken hip, according to local media reports citing the sheriff’s office.

‘REALLY INTENSE’

Police closed a bridge crossing the Eel River into Ferndale, a picturesque town notable for its gingerbread-style Victorian storefronts and homes, after four large cracks were discovered in the span. The California Highway Patrol also said the roadway foundation there was at risk of sliding.

Authorities reported at least four other roads in Humboldt County closed due to earthquake damage, and a possible gas line rupture under investigation. One section of a roadway was reportedly sinking, the Highway Patrol said.

Ferndale and the adjacent towns of Fortuna and Rio Dell appeared hardest hit, with damage including water main breaks and about two dozen homes “red-tagged” because they were too unstable to be safely inhabited, state emergency services officials said.

[1/7] The collapsed second story porch of a house is seen after a strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern California, in Rio Dell, California, U.S. December 20, 2022. REUTERS/Fred Greaves

“The shaking was really intense,” said Daniel Holsapple, 33, a resident of nearby Arcata, who recounted grabbing his pet cat and running outside after he was jostled awake in pitch darkness by the motion of the house and an emergency alert from his cellphone.

“There was no seeing what was going on. It was just the sensation and that general low rumbling sound of the foundation of the whole house vibrating,” he said.

Janet Calderon, 32, who lives in the adjacent town of Eureka, said she was already awake and noticed her two cats seemed agitated moments before the quake struck, shaking her second-flood bedroom “really hard.”

“Everything on my desk fell over,” she said.

California’s earthquake early warning system appeared to have worked, sending electronic alerts to the mobile devices of some 3 million northern California residents 10 seconds before the first rumbles were felt, said state emergency chief Mark Ghilarducci.

While earthquakes producing noticeable shaking are routine in California, tremors at a magnitude 6.4 are less common and potentially dangerous, capable of causing partial building collapses or shifting structures off their foundations.

Tuesday’s temblor struck in a seismically active area where several tectonic plates converge on the sea floor about 2 miles offshore, an area that has produced about 40 quakes in the 6.0-7.0 range over the past century, said Cynthia Pridmore, a senior geologist for the California Geological Survey.

“So it is not unusual to have earthquakes of this size in this region,” she told a news conference.

Shaking from Tuesday’s quake, which occurred at the relatively shallow depth of 11.1 miles (17.9 km) was felt as far away as the San Francisco Bay area, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The biggest aftershock registered a magnitude 4.6.

Some 79,000 homes and businesses were without power in Ferndale and surrounding Humboldt County shortly after the quake, according to the electric grid tracking website PowerOutage.us.

PG&E crews were out assessing the utility’s gas and electric system for any damage and hazards, which could take several days, company spokesperson Karly Hernandez said.

Reporting by Nathan Frandino in Rio Dell, Calif.; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Calsbad, Calif; Rich McKay in Atlanta, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago, Laila Kearney in New York City and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Mark Porter, Lisa Shumaker and Richard Chang

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World

Russia drones smash power network in Odesa, leaving 1.5 million without power

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KYIV, Dec 10 (Reuters) – All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday.

“The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity… It doesn’t take hours, but a few days, unfortunately.”

Since October, Moscow has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with large waves of missile and drone strikes.

Norway was sending $100 million to help restore Ukraine’s energy system, Zelenskiy said.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for Odesa’s regional administration, said electricity for the city’s population will be restored “in the coming days,” while complete restoration of the networks may take two to three months.

Bratchuk said an earlier Facebook post by the region’s administration, advising some people to consider evacuating, was being investigated by Ukraine’s security services as “an element of the hybrid war” by Russia.

That post has since been deleted.

“Not a single representative of the authorities in the region made any calls for the evacuation of the inhabitants of Odesa and the region,” Bratchuk said.

Odesa had more than 1 million residents before the Feb. 24 invasion that Russia calls a “special military operation” to “denazify” its smaller neighbour.

Kyiv says Russia has launched hundreds of Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones at targets in Ukraine, describing the attacks as war crimes due to their devastating effect on civilian life. Moscow says its attacks are militarily legitimate and that it does not target civilians.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said two power facilities in Odesa region were hit by Shahed-136 drones.

Ukraine’s armed forces said on Facebook that 15 drones had been launched against targets in the southern regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv, and 10 had been shot down.

Tehran denies supplying the drones to Moscow. Kyiv and its Western allies say that is a lie.

Britain’s defence ministry said on Saturday that it believed Iran’s military support for Russia was likely to increase in the coming months, including possible deliveries of ballistic missiles.

Reporting by Max Hunder and David Ljunggren; Editing by Ros Russell, Daniel Wallis and William Mallard

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World

Snow to blanket Kyiv from Sunday as power still in short supply

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KYIV, Nov 27 (Reuters) – Heavy snowfall was expected in Kyiv starting on Sunday, with temperatures dropping below freezing day and night, while millions of people who still live in and around the Ukrainian capital remain with little electricity and heat.

Grid operator Ukrenergo said on Saturday that electricity producers were able to cover only three-quarters of consumption needs, necessitating restrictions and blackouts across the country.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that there are restrictions on the use of electricity in 14 out of Ukraine’s 27 regions and in Kyiv, for “more than 100,000” customers in each of the regions.

“If consumption increases in the evening, the number of outages may increase,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“This once again shows how important it is now to save power and consume it rationally.”

Sergey Kovalenko, chief operating officer of YASNO, which provides energy to Kyiv, said the situation in the city has improved but still remained “quite difficult.” He indicated that residents should have at least four hours of power per day.

“If you haven’t had at least four hours of electricity in the past day, write to DTEK Kyiv Electric Networks, colleagues will help you figure out what the problem is,” Kovalenko wrote on his Facebook page.

YASNO is the retail branch of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy provider.

Russia’s latest bombardment on Wednesday inflicted the worst damage so far in the conflict, leaving millions of people in Ukraine with no light, water or heat. read more

Russia says it does not target the civilian population, while the Kremlin said that Moscow’s strikes on energy infrastructure are a consequence of Kyiv being unwilling to negotiate. read more

In a rare public spat involving Ukrainian leaders, Zelenskiy on Friday criticised the mayor of Kyiv for doing what he said was a poor job setting up emergency shelters to help those without power and heat after Russian attacks. read more

Ukrenergo said that blackouts will continue and urged limited use of power.

“We would like to remind you that now every Ukrainian whose home has had electricity restored can help restore it to others faster, simply by consuming electricity sparingly,” it said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Snow is expected to continue in Kyiv, a city that had 2.8 million residents before the war, until midweek while temperatures are forecast to stay below freezing.

Reporting in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Kim Coghill

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World

Ukraine promises shelters for its people as winter sets in

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  • ‘Invincibility centres’ to provide heat, water, internet
  • Power outages widespread as Russia targets electricity grid
  • G7 to soon announce price cap on Russian oil – U.S. official

KYIV, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Ukraine promised shelters with heat and water and encouraged its people to save energy as a harsh winter loomed amid relentless Russian strikes that have left its power structure in tatters.

Special “invincibility centres” will be set up around Ukraine to provide electricity, heat, water, internet, mobile phone connections and a pharmacy, free of charge and around the clock, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Tuesday.

Russian attacks have knocked out power for long periods for up to 10 million consumers at a time. Ukraine’s national power grid operator said on Tuesday the damage had been colossal.

“If massive Russian strikes happen again and it’s clear power will not be restored for hours, the ‘invincibility centres’ will go into action with all key services,” Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this week that some 8,500 power generator sets are being imported to Ukraine daily.

The first snow of the winter has fallen in much of the country over the past week.

Authorities have warned of power cuts that could affect millions of people to the end of March – the latest impact from Russia’s nine-month invasion that has already killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions and pummelled the global economy.

Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities follow a series of battlefield setbacks that have included a retreat of its forces from the southern city of Kherson to the east bank of the Dnipro River that bisects the country.

A week after being retaken by Ukrainian forces, residents in Kherson were tearing down Russian propaganda billboards and replacing them with pro-Ukrainian signs.

“The moment our soldiers entered, these posters were printed and handed over to us. We found workers to install the posters, and we clean up the advertisement off as quickly as possible,” said Antonina Dobrozhenska, who works at the government’s communications department.

Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region killing a baby, the regional governor said on the Telegram messaging service.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report. Russia denies targeting civilians.

[1/8] People wait in line to get food, water and aid after Russia’s military retreat from Kherson, outside the Church of Christ the Savior in Kherson, Ukraine November 22, 2022. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Battles raged in the east, where Russia is pressing an offensive along a stretch of front line west of the city of Donetsk, which has been held by its proxies since 2014. The Donetsk region was the scene of fierce attacks and constant shelling over the past 24 hours, Zelenskiy said.

In Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian air defences were activated and two drone attacks were repelled on Tuesday, including one targeting a power station near Sevastopol, the regional governor said. Sevastopol is the home port of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Russian-installed Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev called for calm and said no damage had been caused.

‘DARKEST DAYS’

The World Health Organization warned this week that hundreds of Ukrainian hospitals and healthcare facilities lacked fuel, water and electricity.

“Ukraine’s health system is facing its darkest days in the war so far. Having endured more than 700 attacks, it is now also a victim of the energy crisis,” Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said in a statement after visiting Ukraine.

Russia’s strikes on energy infrastructure are a consequence of Kyiv being unwilling to negotiate, Russia’s state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying last week.

Russia says it is carrying out a “special military operation” to rid Ukraine of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities.

Ukraine and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked, imperialist land grab in the neighbouring state it once dominated within the former Soviet Union.

Western responses have included financial and military aid for Kyiv – it received 2.5 billion euros ($2.57 billion) from the EU on Tuesday and is expecting $4.5 billion in U.S. aid in coming weeks – and waves of sanctions on Russia.

The BBC reported Britain is sending three helicopters to Ukraine, the first piloted aircraft it is sending since the war began. Ukraine will deploy them with Ukrainian crews trained in Britain, it said.

The West has also sought to cap Russian energy export prices, with the aim of reducing the petroleum revenues that fund Moscow’s war machine while maintaining flows of oil to global markets to prevent price spikes.

The Group of Seven nations should soon announce the price cap and will probably adjust the level a few times a year, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Tuesday.

Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Oleksandr Kozhukhar and Maria Starkova in Kyiv, Ronald Popeski in Winnipeg, Lidia Kelley in Sydney; Writing by Rosalba O’Brien and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Robert Birsel

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World

‘Playing with fire’: UN warns as team to inspect damage at Ukraine nuclear plant

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  • IAEA chief warns: ‘You’re playing with fire!’ after blasts
  • Russia, Ukraine trade blame for shelling
  • President Zelenskiy says eastern region hit by heavy artillery
  • ‘Fiercest battles’ in Donetsk region, Zelenskiy says

LONDON/LVIV, Ukraine, Nov 21 (Reuters) – The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has warned that whoever fired artillery at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “playing with fire” as his team prepared to inspect it on Monday for damage from the weekend strikes.

The attacks on Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in the south of Ukraine came as battles raged in the east, where Russian forces pounded Ukrainian positions along the front line, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

The shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station follows setbacks for Russian forces in the Kherson region in the south and a Russian response that has included a barrage of missile strikes across the country, many on power facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said more than a dozen blasts shook the nuclear plant late on Saturday and on Sunday. IAEA head Rafael Grossi said the attacks were extremely disturbing and completely unacceptable.

“Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” Grossi said in a statement.

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the shelling of the facility, as they have done repeatedly in recent months after attacks on it or near it.

Citing information provided by plant management, an IAEA team on the ground said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment, but none of them critical for nuclear safety and security.

The team plans to conduct an assessment on Monday, Grossi said, but Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom said there would be curbs on what the team could inspect.

“If they want to inspect a facility that has nothing to do with nuclear safety, access will be denied,” Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Rosenergoatom’s CEO, told the Tass news agency.

Repeated shelling of the plant has raised concern about a grave accident just 500 km (300 miles) from the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The Zaporizhzhia plant provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s invasion, and has been forced to operate on back-up generators a number of times. It has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235.

The reactors are shut down but there is a risk that nuclear fuel could overheat if the power driving the cooling systems is cut. Shelling has repeatedly cut power lines.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine fired shells at power lines supplying the plant but Ukraine’s nuclear energy firm Energoatom accused Russia’s military of shelling the site, saying the Russians had targeted infrastructure necessary to restart parts of the plant in an attempt to further limit Ukraine’s power supply.

A view shows Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the town of Nikopol, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine November 7, 2022. Picture taken through glass. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

‘FIERCEST BATTLES’

In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces battered Ukrainian front-line positions with artillery fire, with the heaviest attacks in the Donetsk region, Zelenskiy said in a video address.

Russia withdrew its forces from the southern city of Kherson this month and moved some of them to reinforce positions in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, an industrial area known as the Donbas.

“The fiercest battles, as before, are in the Donetsk region. Although there were fewer attacks today due to worsening weather, the amount of Russian shelling unfortunately remains extremely high,” Zelenskiy said.

“In the Luhansk region, we are slowly moving forward while fighting. As of now, there have been almost 400 artillery attacks in the east since the start of the day,” he said.

Ukraine’s military in an early Monday update confirmed heavy fighting over the previous 24 hours, saying its forces had repelled Russian attacks in the Donetsk region while Russian forces were shelling in the Luhansk region in the east and Kharkiv in the northeast.

In the south, Zelenskiy said troops were “consistently and very calculatedly destroying the potential of the occupiers” but gave no details.

Kherson city remains without electricity, running water or heating.

Ukraine said on Saturday that about 60 Russian soldiers had been killed in a long-range artillery attack in the south, the second time in four days that Ukraine has claimed to have inflicted major casualties in a single incident.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that up to 50 Ukrainian servicemen were killed the previous day along the southern Donetsk front line and 50 elsewhere.

Reuters was not able to immediately verify any battlefield reports.

Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” its neighbour, though Kyiv and its allies say the invasion is an unprovoked war of aggression.

Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst in Kyiv, said that according to his information, Russian offensives were taking place on the Bakhmut and Avdiivka front line in the Donetsk region, among others.

“The enemy is trying to break through our defences, to no avail,” Zhdanov said in a social media video. “We fight back – they suffer huge losses.”

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Caleb Davis in Gdansk and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne;
Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, David Ljunggren and Shri Navaratnam;
Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Ukraine nuclear plant shelled, U.N. warns: ‘You’re playing with fire!’

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  • IAEA says Ukraine plant rocked by 12 blasts
  • Plant is controlled by Russian forces
  • Moscow and Kyiv accuse other of shelling
  • ‘You’re playing with fire!’ – IAEA chief

LONDON, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian control, was rocked by shelling on Sunday, drawing condemnation from the U.N. nuclear watchdog which said such attacks risked a major nuclear disaster.

More than a dozen blasts shook Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Saturday evening and Sunday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. Moscow and Kyiv both blamed the other for the shelling of the facility.

“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely disturbing,” said Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, whose team on the ground said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment at the plant.

“Explosions occurred at the site of this major nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!”

Repeated shelling of the plant in southern Ukraine, which Russia took control of shortly after its February invasion, has raised concern about the potential for a grave accident just 500 km (300 miles) from the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, and has been forced to operate on back-up generators a number of times. It has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235.

The reactors are shut down but there is a risk that nuclear fuel could overheat if the power that drives the cooling systems was cut. Shelling has repeatedly cut power lines.

SIDES SWAP BLAME

Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of attacking the plant on several occasions during the conflict and risking a nuclear accident, and they again exchanged blame on Sunday.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine fired shells at power lines supplying the plant, while TASS reported some of the site’s storage facilities had been hit by Ukrainian shelling, quoting an official from Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom.

“They shelled not only yesterday, but also today, they are shelling right now,” said Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Rosenergoatom’s CEO, adding that any artillery attack at the site posed a threat to nuclear safety.

Karchaa said the shells had been fired near a dry nuclear waste storage facility and a building that houses fresh spent nuclear fuel, but that no radioactive emissions had currently been detected, according to TASS.

Ukraine’s nuclear energy firm Energoatom accused the Russian military of shelling the site and said there were at least 12 hits on plant infrastructure.

It said that Russia had targeted the infrastructure necessary to restart parts of the plant in an attempt to further limit Ukraine’s power supply.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Caleb Davis in Gdansk; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Pravin Char and Frances Kerry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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