MOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. The cooling tower of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) will have to undergo major repair with restoration of plastic steam traps after the attack of Ukrainian drones, plant director Yury Chernichuk told reporters.
"Separation devices completely burned out," the director said. "Structural steel was also exposed to fire effects. The major repair will have to be done here with restoration of plastic separation devices, this is definitely so," he added.
The drone entered the cooling tower from the top and detonated there, Chernichuk said. The fire site review shows that the unmanned aerial vehicle carried an incendiary agent. Plastic separators were the main source of fire, the director stressed. "Definitely not tires or drums with fuel or something else, as some mass media wrote," he noted. The most important is that the entire structure withstood the drone strike. "There are no preconditions for the cooling tower to collapse, although there were such concerns yesterday," the director stressed.
Ukrainian strike drones directly hit one of two cooling towers of the Zaporozhye NPP on August 11, causing fire with internals burning. The fire did not affect plant operation because the plant is shut down.