A devastating earthquake has struck near a nuclear power station in Southern Iran, according to Reuters.
The earthquake, which hit 6.3 on the Richter scale, occurred near the country’s only nuclear power station. According to a Red Cross official, the earthquake also ravaged two villages.
The reactor has not been damaged according to the Russian company that built the nuclear plant.
Concerns about the nuclear plant’s location have come up in the past. Experts on the Gulf Arab countries and the west have worried that the plant, located in Bushehr Province of Iran, would be dangerous in a extremely seismic area.
According to state television, the earthquake produced four casualties. In addition, thousands of individuals who live near the villages of Shanbe and Sana experienced severe damage according to Morteza Moradipous, who spoke to a state news agency IRNA.
The Russian state news agency RIA spoke to an official from Atomstroyexport, the nuclear vendor that built the power plant in Bushehr.
"The earthquake in no way affected the normal situation at the reactor," the official said according to RIA. "Personnel continue to work in the normal regime and radiation levels are fully within the norm."
According to a local Iranian official who wished to remain anonymous, people in Bushehr did feel the earthquake.
"I don't think anything happened to the Bushehr power plant as it happened outside Bushehr city."
One resident of Bushehr, who requested to only be identified by her first name Nikoo, corroborated the official’s account of the quakes effect in Bushehr. She explained that although her and her neighbors felt the shaking, their homes were not damaged.
"We could clearly feel the earthquake,” she said. “The windows and chandeliers all shook."
Iran is currently the only nation with a nuclear power plant that has not joined the Convention Nuclear Safety. The United Nations has asked the nation join the convention.
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