External power restored to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, IAEA says

External power has been restored to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, which is under Russian control, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced on Sunday.

The plant lost its external power supply after the Ferosplavna power line was cut on Sunday morning, forcing it to use backup generators to cool its nuclear fuel. The IAEA said the cause and location of the cut were unknown; it is the 27th such incident since the Russia-Ukraine conflict began.

The plant's Russian management said the line was disconnected because of "automatic protection", and said radiation levels at the plant and in the monitoring zone were normal.

Russia seized the plant, Europe's largest with six reactors, in the early weeks of the war that began in February 2022. Moscow and Kyiv have continued to blame each other for military activity endangering nuclear safety. Last September, a local ceasefire brokered by the IAEA came into effect and repair work restored the external supply; the plant had been without outside power since 20 August.

UPDATE: The IAEA had warned that the emergency diesel generators keeping cooling systems running held only about two weeks of fuel, and warned repeatedly that a meltdown and radiation disaster risked following if fuel ran out. Ukrainian power engineers repaired the connection within hours, temporarily averting disaster; the cause of the latest cut is still unknown. Russia said the line disconnected automatically and that radiation levels at the plant remained normal.