IAEA head says tower at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia station requires demolition after fire

(Reuters) - The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said a cooling tower at Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant had been badly damaged in a fire last month and would probably have to be demolished.

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the comment on Wednesday during his fifth visit to the plant, which was seized by Russian forces soon after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have regularly accused each other of attacking the plant and risking a nuclear accident.

Grossi posted a video on the messaging platform X assessing the damage while standing inside the cooling tower.

"Until today, we hadn't been able to get to this point, high up in the tower, so we can assess in a much better way the damage that occurred," Grossi, wearing a helmet and bullet-proof vest, said in the video. "This big structure is not usable in the future, so it will probably be demolished at some point."

Fire broke out in the tower on August 11, with Russia and Ukraine accusing each other of actions that triggered the blaze.

Grossi at the time described the incident as one of numerous "reckless attacks", but did not attribute blame.

The Zaporizhzhia plant in southeastern Ukraine, Europe's largest with six reactors, has been in "cold shutdown" and produces no electricity. It requires outside power to keep nuclear material cool and prevent an accident.

The video also showed Grossi inspecting a pumping station to provide water, in shorter supply after the destruction last year of southern Ukraine's Kakhovka dam. He also visited a nuclear fuel storage facility.

Grossi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Tuesday and said matters were "very fragile" at Zaporizhzhia, where IAEA inspectors have been stationed since mid-2022.

Grossi last week visited the Kursk nuclear plant in southern Russia and said there was a danger of a nuclear accident there as Ukrainian forces, which launched an incursion into Kursk region last month, were 40 km (25 miles) away.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski in Winnipeg; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)