Thousands of police guard German railways as nuclear fuel passes

Nov 11, 2006, 21:03 GMT

Gorleben, Germany - Thousands of police were protecting railway tracks from sabotage in Germany Saturday as a train hauled high-grade nuclear waste towards a storage site in the north of the country.

The train had earlier been held up by protesters blocking tracks in France, where a factory had converted the spent fuel from German nuclear power stations into pellets of glass and packed them inside a type of storage container known as a 'castor.'

All nine preceding rail convoys to the dump, a former salt mine at Gorleben in northern Germany, have been disrupted over the years by violent protests. Police were taking no chances in the cat-and-mouse hunt for demonstrators who could block the track at any point.

Two years ago a man was killed in France when he lay on the track and a laden nuclear train was unable to stop in time.

The 12 castors were to be unloaded Monday from the train and hauled the last few kilometres to Gorleben by truck. Thousands of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Gorleben to demand the closure of all nuclear power stations and the end of all waste transport.

Police, who said 16,000 personnel were deployed to guard the train, described the protests at Gorleben as peaceful.

The crowd, assessed by the police at 3,000, banged drums and waved banners during a procession that took them as close as allowed to the secure warehouse in Gorleben where 68 castors are so far in storage.

Barricades made of straw and old wood were set on fire. Police said there was a lot of smoke but did no major damage.

While 200 local farmers and many other local residents took part in the demonstration, the issue has divided the Gorleben community, with many others welcoming the facility because it creates jobs.

Germany's government has yet to decide whether to put the castors down the Gorleben salt mine or find another site for long-term storage. The name castor comes from an acronym for 'cask for storage and transport of radioactive material'.