Russia-Ukraine war: Threat of nuclear disaster looms large as fighting continues in Zaporizhzhia

The fear that the fight between Russia and Ukraine around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, could lead to a major nuclear disaster has increased over the last few days.

The area around the nuclear power plant has come under heavy shelling. The plant has been under Russia's control since March.

Russia has allegedly told workers at the Zaporizhzhia plant not to show up to work Friday, Ukrainian military intelligence told NBC News on Thursday.

Blame game: Russia said on Thursday there was a risk of a man-made disaster at Zaporizhzhia and accused Kyiv and the West of planning provocation.

Russia says Ukrainian forces are recklessly firing at the plant, but Ukraine says Russia is deliberately using the reactor complex as a base to launch attacks against its population, reported Reuters.

Erdogan, UN Secretary visit Ukraine: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited Ukraine on Thursday to discuss steps to stop the war and the current nuclear crisis.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he has agreed to the parameters of a mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

VIDEO: On a visit to Ukraine, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says any damage to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, would be "suicide", adding that the area "needs to be demilitarised" pic.twitter.com/3xKi0aqhkh

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 19, 2022

Erdogan warned of the dangers of 'another Chernobyl' disaster erupting at the Zaporizhzhia plant and said that he would later raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, reported AFP.

“We are worried. We don’t want another Chernobyl,” Erdogan said during a press conference Lviv.

How real is the threat of a nuclear disaster? A Ukrainian man, who is an engineer at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, told ABC News that he fears not only for the safety of his family but also the world. "If something happens to the spent fuel storage, the consequences could be the same as Chernobyl," he said.

Leon Cizelj, president of the European Nuclear Society, told CNN that if we use past experiences, Fukushima could be a comparison of the worst-case scenario and not Chernobyl. "It's not very likely that this plant will be damaged," Cizelj said.

Are the nuclear reactors secure? Like all nuclear power plants, Zaporizhzhia is also designed to withstand attacks and calamities like earthquakes. The reactors are protected by up to 10 metres of concrete. But, "The problem is that nuclear power plants are not designed for war zones and, under plausible circumstances, all these systems could fail," James Acton, the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNN.

VIDEO: After multiple Russian strikes hit the southern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing at least six and destroying numerous buildings, the city's firefighters and emergency services get to work on cleaning up the damage pic.twitter.com/vpUFKZJMHS

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 19, 2022

Russia's invasion of Ukraine: It has been 177 days since Russian armed forces invaded Ukraine. The war has left thousands dead, millions displaced and has affected the economy of the entire world. The biggest attack on an European country since World War 2 is turning out to be an ugly one. Since the war started, one-third of Ukrainians have been forced to leave their homes, the largest current human displacement crisis in the world.