The nuclear power plant located in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, was damaged Thursday and was temporarily disconnected from power, as Russian and Ukrainian troops continue fighting in its vicinity.
The nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, had never been disconnected from power before, and the blackout comes as global leaders sound the alarm about potential nuclear catastrophe.
If severely damaged, nuclear waste from the plant, around twice the size of Chernobyl, could spread across the continent.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that “every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, and “what is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”
The electricity was successfully restored to the region later on Thursday, the Russian-installed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said in a statement.
The plant, which has been under Russian control since March, was impacted earlier in August, after it was hit by shelling which damaged three radiation censors and an electrical power line, according to Ukrainian reports.
PHOTOS: Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations about whose troops are damaging the plant, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky calling the attacks “Russian nuclear terror.”
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres stressed on Tuesday that “nuclear saber-rattling must stop,” at this moment of “maximum danger for our world.”
“Humanity’s future is in our hands,” he added, warning for the need of diplomacy to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
Guterres has also called on the IAEA to be given access to the plant, and said if Russia uses a nuclear weapon on Ukraine, there probably wouldn’t be a “U.N able to respond anymore” and that “we all might not be here anymore.”