What Happens If Iran’s Nuclear Facility Is Bombed?

Amid the ongoing conflict over the past seven days, Israel has been targeting various nuclear facilities across Iran. There are also indications that the U.S. may soon deploy its bunker-busting bomb, the GBU-57, to destroy Iran’s Fordo Nuclear Enrichment Plant, which is concealed within a mountainous region south of Tehran. This raises the question: could an attack on Iran's nuclear sites lead to a nuclear catastrophe similar to the Chernobyl disaster that occurred in Soviet-era Russia 39 years ago?

In a report given in the media, science correspondent Victoria Gill explains that although Israel’s strikes are aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear programme, the attacks have focused on facilities where uranium is enriched—that is, purified. Experts told the media that damage to these sites is unlikely to result in a nuclear incident comparable to Chernobyl or Fukushima. This is because uranium enrichment facilities do not involve nuclear reactions.

In a nuclear power plant reactor, uranium atoms are split through a controlled fission reaction, generating heat to produce electricity. This process also creates radioactive waste, which is far more dangerous than the uranium fuel itself. In contrast, enrichment plants only process uranium to make it suitable as reactor fuel; they do not initiate nuclear reactions.

Simon Middleburgh, a nuclear materials scientist at Bangor University, explains that if an enrichment facility were bombed, "the uranium being purified would escape the plant—possibly into the environment. But no nuclear reaction is likely to occur, and so the danger would remain local, with no significant radiological risk outside the immediate area around the facility."