EVENT

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not observe agitation among the Ukrainian people residing in Japan. This was announced on Tuesday by the ministry’s spokesman Oleksandr Dikusarov, reports Interfax-Ukraine. “We can state that there is no stir among the citizens of Ukraine in Japan,” said the diplomat. According to his words, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has repeatedly appealed to Ukrainians in Japan with a proposal to leave Japan’s territory using airplanes that Ukraine designated for their evacuation. At the same time, said Dikusarov, the two airplanes that were sent there for the evacuation have returned half empty. He emphasized that in the first days after the earthquakes and tsunami a total of 1,590 Ukrainian citizens were recorded as living in Japan, 511 of which had consular registration. However, only 190 decided to evacuate using the UIA airplanes. 

The Rivne nuclear power plant management launched a training program for the station’s operational staff with a specific focus on possible seismic events, fire or an accidental disconnection of the power supply. In accordance with the order of the plant’s director general Mykhailo Kolisnychenko, all members of the operational shifts are to attend exercises on full-scale simulators, the chief plant controller Volodymyr Leonov said. Previously, under the plant’s modernization program, they mastered the digital system which had replaced the outdated seismic equipment at the plant. Rivne nuclear power plant staff members also regularly update their knowledge and the skills needed to manage situations where power failures force them to switch to diesel generators to power safety systems, including those that cool the reactor system, and the emergency water pumping system is triggered. The Rivne nuclear power plant staff is constantly rehearsing accident management, and the scenarios to be followed to stop and start units from scratch in the event of a radioactive contamination of the plant’s terrain, during natural disasters, etc., the chief controller noted.