A 330 kilovolt (kV) backup power line to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station was disconnected on 29 December due to damage caused by shelling, in the latest incident underlining the facility’s fragile supplies of electricity from the grid, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear station, whose six reactors are all in shutdown, continues to receive the offsite electricity it needs for reactor cooling and other essential nuclear safety and security functions from the plant’s only remaining operational 750 kV external power line, out of four such lines before the current conflict in Ukraine.

A team of IAEA experts at the facility reported that its connection to the 330 kV Ferosplavna 1 backup line was lost at 21:35 local time on 29 December as a result of damage on the other side of the Dnipro River, some distance away from the station itself.