Journalists are taken on a tour of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Iran, 21 August 2010. Photo: EPA / Abedin Taherkenareh
Russia’s state run atomic power agency Rosatom has suspended the construction of additional reactors at a nuclear power plant on Iran’s southeastern coast since its communications with the Iranian authorities were cut, the agency’s director general Alexey Likhachev announced on Tuesday.
Work at the nuclear power plant, which is located near the Iranian port city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, was suspended after explosions were confirmed to have gone off several kilometres away, Likhachev said, adding that there were serious concerns that the facility could be damaged as the US and Israeli military continue their attacks on the country.
“A strike on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, which stores 70 tonnes of fuel and 210 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel, will cause a regional disaster,” Likhachev warned, adding that Rosatom had lost all contact with the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, whose chief Mohammed Eslami visited Moscow in September to sign a deal for Russia to build eight more nuclear reactors in Iran.
Iran’s first nuclear power plant, Bushehr went online in 2011, and was handed over to Iranian technicians in 2013. The following year, Tehran signed a deal with Rosatom to build two additional reactors at the site, construction of which began in 2017.
In his statement, Likhachev said that Rosatom remained in contact with the 637-strong Russian team working at Bushehr, and that plans were in place for between 150–200 of them to be evacuated once there is a pause in hostilities.
On Tuesday, the IAEA reported that attacks on central Iran’s Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant had led to damage, but that no radiological consequences were expected.
