This nuclear power station is in an earthquake prone region.
It was damaged in the 1988 Spitak earthquake and closed down, but re-opened in 1995 after repairs and being adjudged safe by international experts. It supplies about 40% of Armenia’s electricity.
It’s about 100 km from Spitak, where the epicentre of the 1988 earthquake was. Other earthquakes with their epicentres much closer than that have happened in the past, before this power station was built, and are likely to happen in the future.
It’s 30 km from Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, a city of 1¼ million inhabitants, and about 25 km from where I was standing to take this photograph.
That’s the foothills of Mount Ararat in the background – Mount Ararat out of shot to the left.
©Clive K Semmens 2011