Fatima Muhammad

Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Concerns of Gulf Arab states over Iran’s controversial Bushehr nuclear plant once again came to the fore as a powerful earthquake struck close to the nuclear power station Tuesday, killing at least 32 people and injuring 800 as it devastated small villages.



“We have been repeatedly saying that such a reactor is totally undesirable in the region. The Bushehr reactor is closer to some Gulf states than it is to Iran’s capital Tehran,” Hussein Al-Qahtani, spokesman of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME), told Saudi Gazette.



The magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Tuesday afternoon about 96 km southeast of the Iranian coastal city of Bushehr, where the country’s only nuclear power station is located. The city is located 240 km from Jubail and 280 km from Al-Khobar.



A report published last week by US think-tanks Carnegie Endowment and the Federation of American Scientists said that “ominously” the Bushehr reactor sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates.



“Iran’s sole nuclear power plant is not at risk of a tsunami similar in size to the one that knocked out the electricity and emergency cooling systems at Fukushima. But, repeated warnings about the threat of earthquakes for the Bushehr nuclear plant appear to have fallen on deaf ears,” the report said.



Iran told the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency that the earthquake did not damage the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the IAEA said.



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



Tuesday’s quake coincided with Iran unveiling a uranium production facility and two extraction mines in center of the country.



Shocks from the quake were also felt across the Gulf in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, provoking panic and the brief evacuation of some office towers, residents and media said.



Tremors also struck the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia creating panic among people in the coastal cities of Jubail, Al-Khobar and Dammam as well as in other areas in the Eastern Province. There were no reports of casualties and damage in the 4.1-5.3 magnitude quake.



The Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu evacuated more than 1500 employees from its headquarters building. The Industrial Security Division at the Commission swung into action for the evacuation as part of its plan to deal with emergency situations.



SABIC, Kayan, Sadara and other major companies also evacuated their staff from their high rise buildings.



The Civil Defense Department also received several calls from local residents about the tremors but there were no calls regarding any casualties or damage to properties.



According to eyewitnesses, some buildings were evacuated in Al-Khobar and people ran out of their houses. 



Tareq Abal Khail, spokesman of the Saudi Geological Survey, told Saudi Gazette that the quake hit the region and its impact was less than medium as it was far away from the epicenter of the quake.



Hani Zahran, chairman of the National Center for Earthquakes and Volcanoes, said that there were at least nine aftershocks after 2 p.m Tuesday.

“However, they did not result in any death or injuries and there were also no reports about damage to properties.



“What really happened was that people felt some shocks and tremors,” he told Saudi Gazette. “We are in contacts with Civil Defense officials and are always coordinating with them on such occasions.”



In Dubai, hundreds of kilometers down the Gulf from Bushehr and home to the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, local media reported that several high-rise buildings were briefly evacuated.



“We felt a mild earthquake in Dubai a while ago. Chandeliers were shaking,” Tweeted one resident.



There were no reports that Burj Khalifa, which stands at 828 metres (2,717 feet) high, had been evacuated.



Residents also said there were some evacuations in Bahrain.



In nearby Abu Dhabi, one resident said: “I was watching television when suddenly the whole building started shaking. It was very scary.”



In Doha, some buildings were evacuated, residents said.



Offices in Qatar and Bahrain were evacuated after the quake, whose epicenter was 89 km (55 miles) southeast of the port of Bushehr, according to the US Geological Survey.



Iranian media reports said search and rescue teams accompanied by security forces were dispatched to the quake hit area home to some 12,000 inhabitants, to which telephone connection and electricity had been cut.



Tents, blankets and food have also been sent to the area, the Fars news agency reported.



Iran sits astride several major fault lines and is prone to frequent earthquakes, some of which have been devastating.



A double earthquake, one measuring 6.2 and the other 6.0, struck northwest Iran in August last year, killing more than 300 people and injuring 3,000.



In December 2010, a big quake struck the southern city of Bam. It killed 31,000 people — about a quarter of the population — and destroyed the city’s ancient mud-built citadel. — With agencies