A fire breaks out at a nuclear plant during a Russian assault, Ukraine says.

Mr. Biden’s vitality secretary, Jennifer M. Granholm, said on Twitter that the USA had not detected elevated radiation readings within the space, echoing an earlier evaluation by the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company. “The plant’s reactors are protected by strong containment constructions and reactors are being safely shut down,” she stated.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain stated he would search an emergency assembly of the United Nations Safety Council concerning the blaze on the complicated, based on his workplace.

Earlier than the fireplace was reported by Ukraine’s overseas minister, Dmytro Kuleba, the director normal for the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company stated in a press release that “a lot of Russian tanks and infantry” had entered Enerhodar, a city subsequent to the plant. The director normal, Rafael Mariano Grossi, stated that troops had been “transferring instantly” towards the reactor website.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear complicated, on the Dnieper River roughly 100 miles north of Crimea, is the most important in Europe. In line with the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company, its six reactors produce a complete of 6,000 megawatts of electrical energy.

Compared, the Chernobyl plant in northern Ukraine produced 3,800 megawatts — a few third much less. (A megawatt, a million watts, is sufficient energy to mild 10,000 hundred-watt bulbs.) The 4 reactors of the Chernobyl complicated had been shut down after one suffered a catastrophic fireplace and meltdown in 1986.

The reactors’ cores are stuffed with extremely radioactive gas. However a further hazard on the Zaporizhzhia website is the numerous acres of open swimming pools of water behind the complicated the place spent gas rods have been cooled for years. Specialists worry that errant shells or missiles that hit such websites may set off radiological disasters.

For days, social media reports have detailed how the residents of Enerhodar arrange an enormous barrier of tires, autos and metallic barricades to attempt to block a Russian advance into the town and the reactor website. Christoph Koettl, a visible investigator for The New York Instances, noted on Twitter that the barricades had been so giant that they could possibly be seen from outer space by orbiting satellites.

Beginning this previous Sunday, three days into the invasion, Ukraine’s nuclear regulator started reporting an uncommon price of disconnection: Six of the nation’s 15 reactors had been offline. On Tuesday, the Zaporizhzhia facility was the positioning with essentially the most reactors offline.

John Yoon, Marc Santora and Nathan Willis contributed reporting.