—few from the actual bombing, but most of them from the nuclear materials that would be scattered in the air by the bombing—with more than 70 percent of those in eastern Esfahan.
The study was prepared by Khosrow B. Semnani, an Iranian-American businessman who owns a major site for the disposal of nuclear waste in Utah. It was overseen by the University of Utah, which also contributed to the work on radiological damage in the report, and Omid for Iran.
The study is titled “The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble: The Human Cost of Military Strikes Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities.”
The study looked at attacks on the nuclear sites at Esfahan, Natanz, Arak and Bushehr. It included Bushehr, although it said an attack there was highly unlikely since the nuclear power plant is not part of any military program. It said the enrichment plant at Fordo was likely to be hit but did not include any calculations on Fordo for lack of information.
The study acknowledged that such things as wind direction and humidity will impact the extent of casualties.
It estimates the staff on duty at the plants on each of two shifts at 3,500 to 5,500 and forecasts that almost all of them would be killed or injured. It does not address the possibility that an air attack would take place in the middle of the night when only a handful of people would likely be on duty.
For civilians living near the plants, it says the biggest danger is in eastern Esfahan because that populated area is not far from the uranium conversion plant. “If we assume a conservative casualty rate of 5 to 20 percent among those populations, we can expect casualties in the range of 12,000-70,000 people,” the study says. Casualty means both dead and injured.
At Natanz, the main uranium enrichment site, the threat is much lower because of the remote location. “The facility is not in close proximity to a major urban center, the surrounding area is sparsely populated and the prevailing winds blow away from the cities of Natanz and Kashan,” the report says.
“We estimate causalities from exposure to toxic plumes in the Natanz rural region at between 800-7,000 people. Given Natanz’s reputation as a fruit and agricultural center, the environmental consequences of strikes on the local economy would be significant.”
As for the third site, Arak, the report says that once the reactor becomes operational—which the Iranian government says will be one year from now, “an attack would expose Khondab, a city of 72,000 residents two miles from the facility, to large quantities of radioactive material. We estimate that if only 1 to 5 percent of the population is exposed, between 720 and 3,600 people could suffer from chronic effects.”
The study says there are several other factors that could impact the people near these sites.
“Poor disaster management and inadequate emergency preparation could magnify casualties by a factor of ten. For example, the fatalities in Iran in the aftermath of the Bam Earthquake were ten times those from a more powerful earthquake that hit a more densely populated region of Turkey,” the report said.
“As far as exposure to radiation is concerned, it is important to note that the Islamic Republic of Iran lacks a substantial capacity to handle a threat of such a nature and scale. As far as radiation exposure, in the only case documented by the IAEA, the now infamous Gilan case, the Islamic Republic had no choice but to send a worker exposed to radiation to the Institut Curie in France for specialized treatment.
“In the event of a large scale disaster at an operational nuclear reactor, it would be extremely difficult for exposed civilians to receive appropriate medical attention or compensation from the Iranian government.”