Radiation risk to Europe

And how to protect yourself and family

Existential threat to Europe

Strikes close to a storage facility for spent fuel

Iodine-127, good

Iodine-131, very radioactive

Iodine-131 (half life 8 days)

Caesium-137 (half life 20 years)

Uranium 235 (reactor-grade uranium), half life 700 million years

Largest nuclear power plant in Europe, 6 reactors, at Zaporizhzhia

Chernobyl 4 reactor accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel.

The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the environment,

Reactor core had 192 tonnes of fuel,

with the deposition of radioactive materials in many parts of Europe.

Some 350,000 people were evacuated as a result of the accident

Five million people lived in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine

contaminated

A total of 29,400 km2 was contaminated above 180 kBq/m2.

Some 20,000 to 600,000 liquidators irradiated

On 24 February Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that Russian forces had taken control of all facilities at Chernobyl

On 9 March the Chernobyl nuclear plant was disconnected from the electricity grid.

National atlas of Ukraine

North, east, and south, easterly and southeasterly winds prevail

1385 miles

Acute radiation syndrome (ARS), nausea, vomiting, headaches, burns, fever

Longer term effects

What to Know About Potassium Iodide for Nuclear Radiation Emergencies

One 130-milligram pill of potassium iodide

Do not take KI unless you are instructed by public health or emergency response officials or a healthcare provider.

Unstoppable wind of radioactive contamination

Valery Vasiliev, Russian Major General

(since been deleted Telegram)

there will be either Russian land or a scorched desert

Update 88 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP)

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) needs to send a mission

IAEA has received information about shelling near the spent fuel storage facility.

Friday’s events had breached several of the seven indispensable nuclear safety and security pillars

Pillar 1 (Physical integrity)

Pillar 2 (All safety and security systems and equipment must be functional at all times)

Pillar 3 (Operating Staff)

Pillar 4 (Power supply)

Pillar 6 (Radiation monitoring and Emergency Preparedness and Response arrangements)

Director General Grossi Alarmed by Shelling at Ukraine NPP, says IAEA Mission Vital for Nuclear Safety and Security

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Rafael Mariano Grossi

I’m extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in

Ukraine and beyond.

Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

This must stop and stop now.

I have been ready to lead a mission of IAEA safety, security and safeguards experts to the country’s biggest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzya.

We can’t afford to lose any more time.

Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general

end to the suicidal military operations around the plant

Karine Jean-Pierre, White House spokesman

Fighting near a nuclear plant is dangerous