Russia calls for 'safety island' around Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant

MOSCOW, March 19 (Reuters) - A senior Russian official called on Thursday for the creation of a safety zone around Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant to prevent a major disaster, two days after a projectile struck within several hundred metres of its reactor.

Alexei Likhachev, head of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said there were 72 tons of fissile material and 210 tons of spent nuclear fuel at the site, and that any strike on it could lead to a catastrophe.

"If an incident were to occur, it would be at least regional in scale and would affect a large number of countries in the Middle East. None of the parties to the conflict would avoid radiation exposure in the event of a serious accident at Bushehr," Likhachev told reporters.

Iran, which has been under heavy U.S. and Israeli airstrikes since February 28, said on Tuesday that an unspecified projectile had hit the area near the Bushehr plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said a structure about 350 metres from the reactor was hit and destroyed, but there was no damage to the reactor itself and no injuries to staff. Rosatom said radiation levels around the plant remained normal.

Rosatom built the first 1-gigawatt unit of Iran's only nuclear power plant at Bushehr and is constructing additional units there.

It has evacuated some of its hundreds of staff from there in recent weeks. Likhachev said a further major evacuation was planned, which would leave only a few dozen employees at the site.

"I believe political leaders and lawmakers must now play their role and do everything possible to ensure there is no recurrence of such risks — not even a hint of possible direct strikes on the site of an operating power unit," he said.

"We appeal to the leadership of all parties to the conflict to make this area an island of safety and to rule out any risk."

Likhachev added that the U.S. and Israel had precise information on the geographical coordinates of the Bushehr plant and the new units under construction there.

(Reporting by Anastasia Lyrchikova; editing by Mark Trevelyan and Gareth Jones)