German nuclear waste train crosses into France
Date: 30-Aug-01
Country: FRANCE
The shipment of 12 radioactive spent fuel rods, weighing six and a half tonnes, left Biblis nuclear power plant on its way for the La Hague reprocessing plant early yesterday.
Late on Tuesday 10 Greenpeace members chained themselves to the tracks at Biblis in the state of Hesse before being cut loose and held by police.
As the train moved through Mannheim, four demonstrators were arrested for running onto the rails while at Homburg an der Saar police removed protesters who delayed the train for half an hour by blocking the tracks.
A Reuters correspondent said some 20 anti-nuclear campaigners gathered in Stiring-Wendel on France's northeastern border with Germany but did not try to physically stop the train as protesters have done in the past.
The transport of nuclear waste for reprocessing abroad resumed in April after a three-year interruption. This followed an agreement between the German federal government and the power industry on the abandonment of nuclear energy by 2020.
As part of the deal, the reprocessing of fuel rods abroad will be allowed until 2005. In return, Germany has agreed to take back the reprocessed waste.
Yesterday's contentious delivery was held in one container on a train comprising a total of some 20 wagons. The specialist La Hague plant is near the northwestern French town of Cherbourg.
The train was expected to arrive at Valognes, near Cherbourg, at 2341 GMT, but anti-nuclear campaigners said they planned to try to stop the convoy on its route through France.
In the past, activists have chained themselves to the rail tracks ahead of the oncoming train, forcing it to stop and adding hours to its journey across northeastern France. They have so far not succeeded in stopping a delivery altogether.