The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officially confirmed that the Bushehr nuclear power plant (NPP) was included as a possible Israeli target, according to authorities in Tehran, threatening an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe if the power plant is hit by a missile.

Energy assets across the Gulf region became legitimate after the Israeli attack on the Asaluyeh gas processing facility in Bushehr province, part of the South Pars complex, on March 18, the largest in the world.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ordered civilians near oil installations across the region to “immediately evacuate,” in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, warning that the sites would soon be targeted in retaliatory strikes.

The Israeli attack on South Pars changed the game in the conflict in Iran from a mere “disruption” of hydrocarbon flows, into the “destruction” of production facilities with unpredictable consequences for regional stability and the global economy.

In the worst-case scenario, the Bushehr NPP could take a direct hit and spill radioactive waste, or even just its cooling water, into the Persian Gulf, as the facility was built directly on the coast.

The IAEA warned that would cause many or most of the hundred-odd desalination plants along the coast to be closed in case they took up contaminated water. None of the countries in the Gulf region have much naturally occurring fresh water and all of them are heavily dependent on desalination plants to provide drinking water, so even a limited contamination scare could disrupt supplies for millions until testing confirmed what was safe.

The Gulf is shallow, semi-enclosed, and vital for drinking water, as well as shipping and energy infrastructure. Radioactive contamination would likely be patchy and driven by currents, weather and the size of the release.

The upshot is that within a matter of days large portions of the region would have to start evacuating residents. Swaths of the region would become uninhabitable for years in a major regional emergency. Currently the population of the Gulf is some 190mn people.