[throwanem]

Potentially. I'd worry more about coolant and power (to run the coolant pumps if the plant has to shut down) than about direct hits on a containment structure, but it's not like that won't eventually also cause problems if they keep doing it.

This is, so far as I know, the first time anyone has carried out a military attack on an operating nuclear plant. Nobody knows yet how that really plays out. But it looks like we all get to find out.

[_dain_]

>This is, so far as I know, the first time anyone has carried out a military attack on a nuclear plant

The Israelis bombed an Iraqi plant in the 80s I think.

[nickff]

You're talking about Operation Opera, which was an attack on the unfinished Osirak reactor in Iraq.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera

[throwanem]

Still a fair callout. Edited my original comment to clarify.

[michaelmrose]

The bombed an unfinished plant that they believed would have been critical in paving the way for a belligerent dictator to obtain nuclear weapons courtesy of short sighted idiots in Europe.

Both the Iranians and the Israelis actually bombed the site one different operations in different years. Thereafter Saddam is now known to have said.

"Once Iraq walks out victorious [over Iran], there will not be any Israel"

It was both justified and didn't represent the risk that attacking this reactor represents.

[lupire]

We know what happened in Japan when an earthquake attacked a nuclear plant.

[adastra22]

It’s not comparable because the type of damage is totally different.

[hinkley]

The type of damage at Fukushima was anticipated to be survivable as well, was it not? And yet here we are.

[throwanem]

Fukushima was explicitly a beyond-design-basis accident. (The design basis was insufficient, granted.)

On the other hand, I don't know whether the VVER design contemplates shelling, either.

[Gare]

Technically, it was tsunami that caused trouble.

[kart23]

I'd classify stuxnet as a military attack.

[throwanem]

So would I. But that was targeted at fuel production, not power generation, and also to my admittedly imperfect knowledge involved no artillery fire.