Iran's bombIran pushes ahead with nuke plans, despite seismic warnings
Iranian officials have chosen to ignore the warnings of top scientists and continue with the construction of nuclear facilities near earthquake prone regions; according to an official with the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a top level meeting Iran’s leaders recently decided to move ahead with plans to construct nuclear facilities, despite Iranian scientists’ warnings that “data collected since the year 2000 shows the incontrovertible risks of establishing nuclear sites in the proximity of fault lines’ in Khuzestan as well as nineteen other Iranian provinces; Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world with major fault lines covering at least 90 percent of it
Iranian officials have chosen to ignore the warnings of top scientists and continue with the construction of nuclear facilities near earthquake prone regions.
According to Fox News, an official from the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran’s decision came in the days following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami that severely damaged Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and sparked the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Speaking anonymously, the official said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Fereidoun Abbasi, Iran’s nuclear chief, Abbasi, Saeed Jalili, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the Revolutionary Guard, ordered a review of a 2005 study on the Khuzestan province, where the government plans to build a nuclear plant near the town of Darkhovin.
According to the official, in a top level meeting Iran’s leaders recently dismissed the updated report’s findings and decided to move ahead with plans to construct nuclear facilities, despite Iranian scientists’ warnings that “data collected since the year 2000 shows the incontrovertible risks of establishing nuclear sites in the proximity of fault lines” in Khuzestan as well as nineteen other Iranian provinces.
The meeting concluded with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, approving continued work on reactor designs and that access to the report should be restricted. The study, titled “Geological Analysis and Seismic Activity in Khuzestan: Safety and Environment” has been deleted from computers at Tehran University’s Geographic Institute.
In the last decade, the Khuzestan region has been hit by several earthquakes including one on 20 December 2010 in Hosseinabad, located just 100 miles north of Darkhovin, which had a magnitude of 6.5, and a 6.1 magnitude earthquake on 31 March 2006 in Borujerd, roughly 200 miles to the north.
Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world with major fault lines covering at least 90 percent of it. The country is located in a zone of tectonic compression where the Arabian plate is slowly colliding with the Eurasian plate.
Andrew Freed, an associate professor with Purdue University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said, “Not only [does Iran] have active faults, but many, many unmapped active faults.”
“[Iran] not a good place to build a nuclear plant,” he concluded.
Last month, Iranian officials reaffirmed their staunch support of their nuclear reactor program.
Ramin Mehmanparast, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said, “We have long-term programs for peaceful use of the nuclear knowledge; we continue various activities and this will develop the country.
Ismail Kowsari, the deputy chairman of Iran’s parliamentary committee of national interest and foreign policy, echoed these thoughts stating, “We are pursuing a program to have more reactors.”
Iran’s moves are contrary to the majority of existing nuclear powers which have placed their nuclear programs under increasing scrutiny following events in Japan. Germany has even gone so far as to initiate plans to phase out nuclear power all together.
