Nuclear waste train nears German border; "24-hour halt planned"

Nov 24, 2011, 10:56 GMT

Paris - A train carrying highly radioactive nuclear waste from France to Germany neared the German border Thursday, where anti-nuclear protesters plan large-scale protests.

The train carrying 11 tightly-sealed casks of nuclear waste produced in Germany and treated at a nuclear reprocessing plant in northern France arrived in the north-eastern French town of Remilly, Thursday morning, putting it around 65 kilometres from the south-western German border town of Saarbruecken.

It was unclear if the train would proceed directly across the border.

Police sources told dpa that the train would probably park for 24 hours on the French side before continuing on to a nuclear storage site at Gorleben in northern Germany on Friday.

Thousands of anti-nuclear protesters plan protests along the various routes the train might take across Germany.

Wednesday already saw clashes in France, where police used tear gas and batons to prevent hundreds of protesters getting onto the railway tracks outside Valognes, departure point for the shipment.

Sixteen demonstrators were arrested and at least three people, including a gendarme, were slightly injured.

The shipment contains the last of the German nuclear waste processed by French company Areva at its plant on the English Channel.

Ecologist groups say the train poses a threat to populations along the route in the event of a serious accident or an attack.

Critics of nuclear power say the shipment also highlights a key shortcoming of atomic energy: the absence of a solution to deal with the waste.

High-level radioactive waste, such as that bound for Gorleben, has to be stored for thousands of years.

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