MOSCOW, March 19 - 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.