Belarusian nuclear station designed to survive aircraft crash

The Belarusian nuclear power plant will not be affected by an earthquake with the magnitude of eight points, a hurricane, an explosion, and even an aircraft falling on top of the reactor’s building. The statement was made by Mr Nikolai Grusha, Director of the Nuclear Energy Department of the Belarusian Energy Ministry, during the online conference hosted by the BelTA website on 22 March.

In his words, the AES-2006 design is a unique synergy of active and passive safeguards, which provide the highest level of security and meet requirements of the present day and future decades.

The passive safeguards, which do not require personnel and power supply to respond, include the dual protective shell made of metal and concrete. The internal hermetically sealed shell will not allow radiation to leak outside if an emergency happens while the external shell will prevent the reactor from an unfavorable external impact.