International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed concern about the water level at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

The IAEA stated that it needed wider access around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to check "a significant discrepancy" in water level data at the breached Kakhovka dam used for cooling the plant's reactors.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi, who is to visit the plant this week, said that measurements the agency received from the inlet of the plant showed that the dam's water levels were stable for about a day over the weekend.

"However, the height is reportedly continuing to fall elsewhere in the huge reservoir, causing a possible difference of about two meters," Grossi said in a statement.

"The height of the water level is a key parameter for the continued operability of the water pumps," he said.

The destruction of the Kakhovka hydropower dam in southern Ukraine last week has flooded towns downstream and forced thousands of people from their homes.

Both the Kakhovka hydropower dam and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have been controlled by Russia since the early days of the war in Ukraine in February 2022.

"It is possible that this discrepancy in the measured levels is caused by an isolated body of water separated from the larger body of the reservoir," Gross said in the statement. "But we will only be able to know when we gain access to the thermal power plant." Grossi said the thermal power plant "plays a key role for the safety and security of the nuclear power plant a few kilometers away," hence the need for access and independent assessment.

Source: Qatar News Agency