The head of Ukraine's state nuclear power company Energoatom has warned that continued shelling on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could lead to a catastrophe of a scale comparable to the accidents in Chornobyl or Fukushima.

Petro Kotin said in a televised interview on Monday that such a catastrophe could happen if two or more containers of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel at the plant were broken.

Kotin stressed the need for the power station and surrounding areas to be demilitarized.

The incidents at the Chornobyl and Fukushima Daiichi power plants are the only nuclear accidents rated level-7, the most serious on an international scale.