The French nuclear giant Areva confirmed on Friday there was a radioactive leak from a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in southeastern France, a week after a uranium spill at another of its plants polluted the water supply.
The latest incident comes as an embarrassment to the French government as it struggles to contain environmentalist anger and reassure residents near its nuclear plants that they are safe.
Earlier last week the government ordered safety tests on the water table around all of France’s 59 nuclear reactors. Areva is at the forefront of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s quest to export French nuclear technology around the world, including to Britain. France is one of the world’s biggest atomic energy nations, generating more than 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.
The newly discovered leak at a plant in Romans-sur-Isere in the Drome region came from a damaged pipe that safety authorities said might have ruptured a number of years ago. Areva, a state-controlled firm that makes nuclear reactors and deals with uranium, said the leak came from a buried pipe transporting liquid uranium and that the crack in the tubing was “several years old.”
France’s nuclear safety authority, the ASN, said the leak did not reach the ground water and that there was no sign of contamination. It said initial tests showed no impact on the environment because the quantity of uranium was very small, around a few hundred grams.
Areva is also responsible for running the Tricastin power plant, in the nearby Vaucluse area, where a uranium leak occurred earlier this month. Drinking well water, swimming and water sports in the area were banned, as well as irrigating crops with the potentially contaminated water. Both leaks ranked as level-one incidents on the seven-point scale of nuclear accidents.
The ASN criticized Areva for the handling of the Tricastin leak, saying it delayed communication of the problem and its security measures were unsatisfactory. After admitting the safety lapse, Areva this week sacked the director responsible for the site and announced an internal audit.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS