Iran

Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant not affected by quake: IAEA

Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says the earthquake that struck Iran’s southern province of Bushehr has not affected the country’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).

“Iran has informed (the IAEA’s Incident and Emergency Centre) of the event, reporting that there has been no damage to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and no radioactive release from the installation,” the IAEA said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

A strong earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck the town of Kaki, some 90 kilometers southeast of Bushehr, at 4:22 p.m. local time (1152 GMT) on Tuesday at a depth of 12 kilometers. At least 37 people were killed and more than 850 others were injured, according to Bushehr’s Governor Fereydoun Hassanvand.

Following the earthquake, Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei offered condolences and called on provincial officials to “do their utmost” to save as many lives as possible and to provide enough support to the survivors of the quake.

The strong quake was followed by many aftershocks, which also jolted the nearby city of Khour-Mowj.

The project manager at the Bushehr NPP, Mahmoud Ja’afari, rejected foreign media reports that the quake had damaged the power plant, saying the facility had been constructed to withstand earthquakes with a magnitude of up to eight Richters.

Meanwhile, Atomstroyexport, the Russian contractor of the power plant in Bushehr, said the earthquake “in no way affected the normal situation at the reactor, personnel continue to work in the normal regime and radiation levels are fully within the norm.”

The Bushehr NPP is located about 18 kilometers south of the provincial capital and about 160 kilometers away from the quake-stricken areas.

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