Europe's largest nuclear plant attacked: What does it mean, how will this affect the world?

Russian shelling on Ukraine on Friday led to a fire in Europe’s largest Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

New Delhi: Constant Russian shelling on Ukraine amid an invasion attempt on Friday led to a fire in Europe’s largest Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and undoubtedly the world, narrowly averted a catastrophe, an irreversible atomic crisis.

Soon after the news of the attack on the nuclear plant broke out, the global forces condemned the attack reminding the world of consequences in case of discrepancies.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed alarm over reports of heavy fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.

Taking to Twitter, the UN chief said nuclear facilities should never ever be targeted in military operations.

“I have been following with great alarm reports of heavy fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and I want to make it very clear that nuclear facilities should never ever be targeted in military operations,” he tweeted.

While the United States, which has imposed stringent sanctions on Russia in response to military aggression, called the Zaporizhzhia attack a blatant war crime.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said that attacking a nuclear power plant is a war crime.

"It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin`s shelling of Europe`s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further," US Embassy in Kyiv said in its Twitter post.

Meanwhile, France has said that it will propose to its partner-specific steps to safeguard five main Ukrainian nuclear facilities based on the criteria by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Elysee Palace said on Friday.

Ukraine has four active nuclear power plants -- Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne and Sout.

Though Ukraine’s energy inspectors said there was no harm to the functioning of the plant and no change in the radiation levels, the attack will pose an impact on the world.

What attack on Zaporizhzhia nuclear station means for the world

Research by specialists for Greenpeace International concludes that the safety of Zaporizhzhia is severely compromised by the war.

n a worst-case scenario, where explosions destroy the reactor containment and cooling systems, the potential release of radioactivity from both the reactor core and the spent fuel pool into the atmosphere could create a disaster far worse even than the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe of 2011.

After the 2011 incident, the areas of land within hundreds of kilometres from the reactor site potentially became inhospitable for decades.