Police guard nuclear waste train
A train loaded with some 60 tons of nuclear waste in six sealed containers was being protected by 15,000 German police today as determined and angry demonstrators made repeated attempts to halts its progress.
The train, which entered Germany from France overnight, was heading for a waste dump in the north of the country.
The train crossed the frontier just south of the southwestern German town of Woerth late yesterday evening but took more than an hour to reach Woerth about seven miles inside Germany as police cleared repeated blockades by small groups of protesters who forced it to halt.
It faced a 375-mile journey northeast to the waste dump at Gorleben.
Hoping to avert violence, Germany put 15,000 police on alert along the route as the train headed toward its border.
About 2,000 officers awaited the train in the border area, and the station at Woerth where a German locomotive and extra carriages for security officials were being attached was sealed off to the public.
Protesters were camped out awaiting the train’s arrival and lit candles along the rails.
In northern Germany, hundreds of people took part yesterday in sit-down protests on rail tracks near the dump where the shipment is headed.
Some 400 were removed by police, and at least 35 more detained after damaging a 50 yard section of track.
The political impact was already being felt in Berlin as the train trundled through France on Monday the Green party faced cries of betrayal from anti-nuclear activists that are among its core supporters.
Rooted in the anti-nuclear movement, the party now is in the government that approved the first cross-border waste shipment since 1997. The shipment involves radioactive waste left over after spent nuclear fuel from German power plants was reprocessed at a French plant.
Anti-nuclear activists say authorities prepared at least nine alternate routes for the transport across Germany to be able to skirt protests.
Police braced for a repeat of clashes with militants that surrounded the last shipment four years ago, promising tough action against any blockades by militants.
Especially vulnerable was the final 12-mile stretch from a rail terminal to the waste dump, where trucks will transport the containers each with about 10 tons of radioactive waste sealed in 28 glass casks.
Police said they peacefully removed some 400 protesters who blocked railroad tracks near the dump on Monday. At least 35 protesters who damaged tracks at another location were detained.
German and French leaders agreed on a resumption of nuclear waste traffic last January, with the German government saying it has tightened safety rules for the transports since the previous administration suspended shipments in 1998 because of radioactive leaks on some containers.
Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the resulting waste.
