9 hours ago
Radiation dangers of three nuclear sites struck by the US
The US has obliterated three major nuclear sites in Iran, President Donald Trump declared on Sunday about noon AEST.
Even before the US strikes, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned Israeli bombardment of nuclear sites had 'caused a sharp degradation in nuclear safety and security in Iran'.
Experts have said chemical contamination was the most likely consequence of damage to Iranian nuclear facilities and the prospect of nuclear fallout or widespread contamination was low.
Strikes have mostly targeted enrichment plants, which use highly pure uranium and don't pose much of a radiological hazard, said Richard Wakeford, a professor at the University of Manchester's Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health when commenting on earlier Israeli bombings.
One of the US targets, however, was Isfahan, which hosts three research reactors and a nuclear waste site.
'If reactors or reprocessing plants are hit, that could be more of a radiological problem if it causes significant damage, because then we could see releases of a range of radionuclides, although presumably on a much smaller scale than from previous reactor accidents,' Wakeford said.
On Saturday (AEST) former nuclear research engineer François Diaz-Maurin, now associate editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, analysed the risk posed by damage or misadventure at each nuclear site, including the three targeted by US bombs.
Isfahan
The US struck the massive nuclear technology site at Isfahan with a barrage of submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles, The New York Times reported. Diaz-Maurin rated the risk of something going wrong at Isfahan as 'moderate'.
