Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said on Monday that reconstruction of the damaged building will get underway at the Shahid Ahmadi Roshan Natanz Complex with a bigger plot of land for a larger building to be built there to house advanced equipment.
Kamalvandi said that after the “accident” at Natanz had taken place last week, “our priority was to ensure that there were no casualties, to find the cause of the accident and the way to reconstruct the complex and compensate for the losses.”
“We found out that there were no casualties, but the financial losses were significant,” the spokesman confessed.
“As the secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council announced, the security organizations now are aware of the cause of accident, but, due to security considerations, they do not plan to comment on it,” he said.
He said that the structure’s construction process started seven years ago and it was about to be completed in two more years, but, due to issues related to Iran nuclear deal, the construction works were halted.
“More samples of advanced centrifuges were supposed to be produced in the building,” he added.
Media sources affiliated with the Iranian opposition have analyzed satellite images of the damaged structure in the Natanz nuclear facility and estimated that the structure may have been hit by a missile or at least an explosive charge and not a fire, as was initially reported by the Iranian authorities.
According to the analysis, the radius of destruction of the structure and the walls reaches 60 feet. Also, according to this analysis, fragments of the structure were flown to a distance of 150 feet. This level of impact would require between 200 and 300 kilos of explosives. Such a damage is likely to result from a missile hit.