Medical Peace Organization IPPNW has warned that a nuclear disaster at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant could impact Austria and Italy./Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko.
The medical peace organization IPPNW has warned that fighting near Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) could cause a nuclear disaster that would impact much of eastern Europe and lead to hunger in many parts of the world.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has seen Russian troops seize control of the plant, which is the largest of its kind in Europe and one of the top 10 biggest in the world.
Both countries have accused each other of shelling near the plant. If the facility was compromised by a missile and a meltdown occurred, it would likely spread large amounts of nuclear contamination across the continent and parts of Russia.
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Even a relatively small accident could be enough to send radioactive particles that would contaminate agriculture as far as Austria or Italy. But the evacuation zone - which is typically a five kilometer radius around a nuclear facility - would only cover areas in Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling near the plant, which was seized by Russian troops earlier in the conflict./Reuters via third party.
The IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) says a potential nuclear disaster in Ukraine is being underestimated by both politicians and experts. It wants nations who are members of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty to act.
"What country would want to have nuclear power plants if you didn't have as a basic international principle that they are not a legitimate military target?" IPPNW programme director Charles Johnson told CGTN. "And at this point we have not had any statement like that from the Security Council even though that was asked by the International Atomic Energy Agency."
At the United Nations' office in Vienna, the scientists presented data going back to the Chernobyl disaster of the 1980s, which killed two people on the night of the disaster, a further 28 as a result of radiation exposure, and saw thousands of others suffer with thyroid cancers in the years that followed.
Unlike Chernobyl, scientists say that iodine contamination would not be a factor in a Zaporizhzhia scenario. But nuclear fission's by-product, caesium-137 would cause problems.
"Caesium is very, very dangerous. The caesium affects a lot of different organs in our body, the muscles and the heart," IPPNW Europe vice-president Angelika Claussen said.
Experts say that a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia would impact Ukraine, Russia and parts of eastern Europe./Reuters/Via third party.
In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor burned for 11 days. Approximately 36 percent of the total radioactive fallout occurred in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, 53% across the rest of Europe and a further 11 % was distributed to the rest of the world.
Claussen referred to the Belarusian Physician and Epidemiologist Lydia Zablotska, who evaluated the health consequences of the Chernobyl accident 30 years later. Her epidemiological studies report an increased long-term risk of leukemia, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, and cataracts in clean-up workers, and for thyroid cancer and non-malignant diseases among children and adolescents.
While Ukraine would be worst affected by an accident, the whole world would suffer due to the amount of grain exported by Kyiv. With a sizable crop area contaminated, food security, especially in Africa, would worsen.
Alarmingly, the IPPNW also warned that either Russia or Ukraine could deliberately cause an accident at Zaporizhzhia - if the wind direction meant it would cause disproportionate harm to the other side.
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