Russia has evacuated 175 employees of state nuclear corporation Rosatom from Iran after an attack near the Bushehr nuclear power plant, TASS reported on April 7.

Bushehr is Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, and Rosatom helped complete it after the project was originally started by a German company in the 1970s. The plant was connected to Iran’s grid in 2011 with a capacity of about 1,000 megawatts.

The workers were flown from Yerevan to Moscow on a special flight, the Russian Embassy in Armenia confirmed. They had earlier crossed into Armenia from Iran via the Norduz-Agarak border crossing.

The embassy expressed "deep gratitude" to the Armenian authorities for their cooperation and swift processing of the Rosatom employees' entry into the country.

The evacuation follows a strike on April 4 near the Bushehr plant in southern Iran.

One security guard was killed in the attack, and an auxiliary building was damaged by the blast wave and shrapnel, Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said.

The plant's main facilities were not damaged, and operations were not disrupted.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had not detected any increase in radiation levels at the site, however, no inspectors have been on site in weeks, according to Iranian sources. 

Rosatom Director General Alexei Likhachev said some staff had volunteered to remain in Iran and continue working.

The first unit of the Bushehr plant continues to operate, with a reduced number of personnel remaining on site, Likhachev said.

Rosatom has repeatedly warned that strikes near Bushehr pose a serious nuclear safety risk, potentially on a regional scale, because the site contains reactor fuel and spent fuel.

Earlier, a second missile attack in the proximity of Iran’s nuclear power plant (NPP) raised the spectre of a Chornobyl-like cloud of radiation drifting over the Persian Gulf region, making some countries uninhabitable for decades and poisoning the water.

Israel struck at the nuclear power plant on March 18 with missiles landing 350m away from the main buildings, in what was seen as a warning shot at the time.