Page 16 - AHATA

A6 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 2 OcTOber 2025

Swiss glaciers shrank

3% this year, the fourth-

biggest retreat on record,

experts say

A view of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia region, in territory
under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine, on May 1, 2022.
Associated Press
Zelenskyy and U.N. atomic agency Matthias Huss, of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich

and glacier monitoring group GLAMOS, and Monica Ursina
head warn of heightened risk at huge Jaeger prepare a camera at the Rhone Glacier near Goms,
Switzerland, on June 10, 2025
Ukrainian nuclear plant Associated Press

By JAMEY KEATEN
By ILLIA NOVIKOV “The generators and the Zelenskyy blamed Russian Associated Press
Associated Press plant were not designed artillery for cutting the pow- GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s glaciers have faced
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — for this,” Zelenskyy said late er line to the Zaporizhzhia “enormous” melting this year with a 3% drop in total
Ukraine’s president and the Tuesday, describing the sit- plant, but Kremlin spokes- volume the fourth-largest annual drop on record due
U.N. nuclear agency head uation as “critical.” man Dmitry Peskov said it to the effects of global warming, top Swiss glaciologists
are sounding the alarm Zaporizhzhia is one of the was Ukrainian shelling. reported on Wednesday.
about increased safety risks 10 biggest nuclear plants in Peskov told reporters The shrinkage this year means that ice mass in Switzer-
at the Russia-occupied Za- the world, and its fate amid Wednesday that it was land home to the most glaciers in Europe has declined
porizhzhia Nuclear Power the fighting has caused “stupid to accuse the Rus- by one-quarter over the last decade, the Swiss glacier
Plant in southern Ukraine, fears of a potential nuclear sian side of shelling the monitoring group GLAMOS and the Swiss Academy of
which lost its external catastrophe. Russian forces plant it controls.” Sciences said in their new report.
power supply more than a seized it days after the full- The Vienna-based IAEA has “Glacial melting in Switzerland was once again enor-
week ago as the war raged scale invasion of neighbor- been walking a tightrope in mous in 2025,” the scientists said.
around it. ing Ukraine began on Feb. the war, eager to maintain “A winter with low snow depth combined with heat
Emergency diesel genera- 24, 2022. access to nuclear facilities waves in June and August led to a loss of 3% of the
tors are providing power for The tension around the and issuing warnings about glacier volume.”
crucial cooling systems for nuclear plant’s safety has the dangers without anger- Switzerland is home to nearly 1,400 glaciers, the most of
the facility’s six shutdown added to broader con- ing either side. Ukraine has any country in Europe, and the ice mass and its grad-
reactors and spent fuel, cerns about the course of four nuclear plants, though ual melting have implications for hydropower, tourism,
and there is no immediate the war, which shows no Zaporizhzhia is the only one farming and water resources in many European coun-
danger to Europe’s biggest signs of ending after a U.S.- in Russian hands. tries.
nuclear plant, according led effort this year to stop The plant shut down its last More than 1,000 small glaciers in Switzerland have al-
to International Atomic En- the fighting came to noth- reactor in the fall of 2022, ready disappeared, the experts said.
ergy Agency Director-Gen- ing. meaning the nuclear fuel The teams reported that a winter with little snow was
eral Rafael Mariano Grossi. European leaders, spooked is relatively cool, but the followed by heat waves in June the second-warmest
But “it is clearly not a sus- by recent violations of their danger remains signifi- June on record which left the snow reserves depleted
tainable situation in terms airspace by unidentified cant, according to Dmy- by early July. Ice masses began to melt earlier than
of nuclear safety,” he said. drones and Russian war- tro Gumeniuk, head of the ever, they said.
The backup generators planes, gathered Wednes- safety analysis department “Glaciers are clearly retreating because of anthropo-
have never needed to run day in Denmark for two at Ukraine’s State Scien- genic global warming,” said Matthias Huss, the head of
for so long, according to summits centered on secu- tific and Technical Center GLAMOS, referring to climate change caused by hu-
Ukrainian President Volody- rity, defense and the war in for Nuclear and Radiation man activity.q
myr Zelenskyy. Ukraine. Safety.q