The earthquake that hit eastern Romania in the early hours of Saturday, September 24, and reached Ukraine has had no impact on the operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, according to the Ukrainian State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate.
”The earthquake hasn`t affected the work of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs). There are no instances of the violation of the operational limits at the local NPPs` reactors,” the inspectorate`s press service said.
The radiation background at the Ukrainian nuclear power plants` grounds has not changed and is within the required indicators. The safety systems are in normal operation.
As was reported, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake hit an area approximately 150 kilometers north of Bucharest, Romania, on September 24.
Residents in major Ukrainian cities like Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro (former Dnipropetrovsk), and Vinnytsia reported about the quake. The State Emergency Situations Service of Ukraine said that a magnitude 3-4 earthquake had been registered in Odesa. It was a magnitude 2-3 earthquake in Dnipro. There were no casualties or destructed facilities in Ukraine.
There are four operating nuclear power plants with 15 reactors in Ukraine. They are located in Zaporizhia, Rivne, Khmelnytsky, and Yuzhnoukrainsk.
Zaporizhia NPP is Europe`s largest nuclear power plant with an overall installed capacity of 6 GW.
The country`s fifth nuclear power plant in Chornobyl was shut down after a 1986 disaster and decommissioned in 2000.
