It failed to ignite...
The entire control room fell silent the instant those words were spoken.
The Rosatom engineers standing before the console looked at one another. Academician Vasily was utterly dumbfounded.
"It failed to ignite?! How is that possible? We... we completed every inspection together with the Hua Nation engineers. How could it possibly have failed to ignite?"
The silence in the control room was instantly shattered by those words. The reporters, who had yet to understand what was happening, erupted into an uproar.
Ignition had failed!
This was a massive project worth tens of billions!
If this project could not operate, it would not simply be an embarrassment. It would be a severe blow to Russia's energy industry as a whole and could even affect diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Standing beside Minister Novak, Director Wang wore an equally grave expression.
Clearly, he had realized the severity of the problem.
He was not the only one. Minister Novak came to his senses as well and immediately put on a stern expression.
"Find out what happened at once!"
The hard-hatted engineer nodded quickly.
"Yes, Minister! We're already doing that!"
Because of the sudden incident, the ignition ceremony was forced to pause.
The only fortunate thing was that the ceremony had not been broadcast live. The reporters present were all from Russian domestic media and cooperatively handed over their memory cards, preventing the impact of the accident from spreading further.
Meanwhile, the Rosatom engineers were as anxious as ants on a hot pan, rushing around the reactor and joining the engineers from the Hua Nation Nuclear Industry Group and East Asia Power in studying the cause of the core ignition failure.
"...Theoretically, there shouldn't have been any malfunction."
"But it happened!"
"I know, but all reactor tests were normal...