Quake too close to Iran's reactor for comfort

The Sydney Morning Herald by Ali Vaez

WASHINGTON: A 6.3-magnitude earthquake shook Iran's southern shores on Tuesday, as the country celebrated National Nuclear Technology Day. It destroyed about 800 homes, killed 37 people and injured more than 900.

Iran's sole nuclear reactor, in Bushehr, 150 kilometres from the quake's epicentre, was unaffected, Iranian and Russian officials said. But there is no way of knowing until the International Atomic Energy Agency report comes out next month. Either way, they got lucky.

The Bushehr reactor, completed in 2011, sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates and is designed to endure earthquakes up to a magnitude of 6.7. So this was a very close call for the hybrid German-Russian reactor - a virtual petri dish of amalgamated equipment and antiquated technology. The sui generis nature of the reactor means Iran cannot benefit from other countries' safety experiences.
It also means regular mechanical breakdowns. During tests in February 2011, all four of the reactor's emergency cooling pumps (holdovers from the 1970s) were damaged, sending tiny metal shavings into the cooling water. The plant's engineers had to thoroughly clean the reactor's core, an operation that further delayed its long-overdue launch. The reactor was shut down again last October after stray bolts were found beneath the fuel cells.

Bushehr is supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its technology is not considered prone to proliferation. As such, it is exempt from the United
Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran.

But there remains international confusion as to the point of the facility. Iran is rich in oil, and the Bushehr plant accounts for less than 2 per cent of its electricity production.

But more worrying is the perilous state of the reactor. Any nuclear disaster at Bushehr would have regional implications.

The prevailing wind in Bushehr heads south-south-west, so the release of radioactive material could threaten civilians in other Gulf countries. It is closer to the capitals of Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province than it is to Tehran. That is why the emir of Kuwait recently urged Iran to improve its safety co-operation with the IAEA.

Iran's ambassador at the United Nations maintains that its nuclear facilities are ''state-of-the-art'' and present no ''undue risk to the health and safety of their personnel, public, next generations and the environment''. But the government has a poor record of anticipating and managing crises.

The scale of destruction, death rates and number of casualties in Iran's natural disasters are unusually high.

In December 2003, when an earthquake measuring 6.6 hit the south-eastern city of Bam, more than 26,000 people died, about 30,000 were injured, 100,000 displaced and 85 per cent of the buildings in the city destroyed. In contrast, a 6.5-magnitude quake that struck San Simeon, California, a few days earlier resulted in only three deaths and 40 damaged buildings.

The Iranian government has neglected to address basic questions about its preparedness for a nuclear emergency, including the lack of evacuation drills for Bushehr residents.

These problems are rooted in the fact that the media are prohibited from investigating and Iran's Nuclear Regulatory Authority is not an independent body. In the absence of a actively vigilant public and pervasive culture of safety, a rigorous and independent nuclear regulator - as in many other countries such as the US and Germany - is vital for prioritising safety.

The IAEA has encouraged the Iranian government to provide the country's national regulatory body with all authority and resources needed to fulfil its functions independently. But so far there is no evidence Iran has heeded this recommendation.
As a result of the politicisation of Iran's nuclear program, safety concerns are secondary.

The leadership's drive to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of international sanctions and boast about its technological capabilities has repercussions, such as the insistence on the premature takeover of the Bushehr plant's management by Iranian technicians.

The Russian operators are due to run the reactor for only the first two years after its official September 2011 start-up and then are to hand over control to the Iranians.
Given that most of the world's nuclear accidents have been caused or exacerbated by human error, this lack of training increases the likelihood of a catastrophe.
To make matters worse, sanctions have deprived Iran of international nuclear assistance and prevented Iranian scientists from attending safety workshops.

Iran is the only nuclear power country that has not signed the Convention on Nuclear Safety, which sets international benchmarks on the siting, design, construction and operation of reactors.

Nuclear safety concerns should neither be exaggerated nor neglected.
But instead of Iran dismissing the warnings, the reverberations that shook the ground in Bushehr should serve as a wake-up call for Iran to improve its nuclear safety standards.