Dalga Khatinoglu, Trend Iran news service head
Although the earthquake in the province of Bushehr located on the coast of the Persian Gulf and led to great destruction and casualties, the Bushehr nuclear power plant located in the province was not damaged. The reason is that Bushehr nuclear power plant is 90 kilometers from the earthquake's epicenter and the earthquake power in the epicenter was only 6.1 points.
This is the second earthquake over the past two months measuring more than five points near the power plant. But the plant continues operating normally.
Bushehr nuclear power plant executive director Mahmoud Jafari told Mehr agency on Tuesday that the station is resistant to earthquakes measuring up to 8 points. The Russian company Rosatomstroy that constructed the nuclear power plant said that the plant could withstand an earthquake measuring 8 points.
After a tragedy occurred at a nuclear power plant in Japan in April 2011 as a result of the tsunami, the possibility of such scenarios at the Bushehr nuclear power plant has been widely discussed.
The problem is that the construction of the nuclear power plant was launched by Germany in 1970th. But it was stopped after the Islamic revolution in 1979. The station was bombarded during the Iran-Iraq war. Finally, Russia began constructing the plant in 1995. But a condition was set for Rosatomstroy to continue the construction work begun by Germany. Thus, Russia had to adopt its technologies with German's.
Another problem is that Iran is the only country which joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons but has not ratified Convention on Nuclear Safety of IAEA.
A WWER-1000 type reactor has been installed at the Bushehr nuclear power plant which is vulnerable to earthquake, especially its cooling system. Moreover, the Iranian province of Bushehr has been included in the category of very warm zones.
Despite all this, Russia and Iran claim that the station is resistant to earthquakes measuring 8 points. The IAEA has not announced any problems in this regard. On the other hand, Bushehr is located on the Persian Gulf coast unlike Japan that locates beside ocean. There is no threat of a tsunami in the Gulf and all equipments sit on 285 cm especial plastics as a fender that prevents earthquake damage.
A dome of special concrete has been installed in the building. It will not allow radiation to spread outside the building in case of an emergency situation. The walls surrounding the reactor are also coated with a special ceramics that do not let radiation out.
Thus, Russia has achieved certain safety for the plant.