Demonstrations have begun in Normandy and northern Germany against the railing of a trainload of nuclear waste from the plutonium factory in La Hague to a storage hall in the village of Gorleben. Hundreds of CRS special unit police used teargas and stun grenades on hundreds of demonstrators trying to stop the train with 11 waste caskets from leaving the departure point, Valognes. The Gorleben “Castorticker” protest news service reported that 600 people sat on the rails for a time but police have removed most of them. About 300 were still in nearby fields.
It’s rumoured that a rail was bent in Valognes and would likely have to be repaired. Ballast stones may also have been removed from the rail bed.
There’s no getting through to the protest area after police blocked a bridge across the railway lines. The French nuclear protest group Sortir de nucléaire reported six arrests so far in Valognes.
The group says traffic was stopped in Valognes, with no trains moving between Lison und Cherbourg.
A protest camp near Valognes has attracted more than 1,000 people.
In the Gorleben area, gully lids are being welded shut along the roads to be used by the truck convoy that will take the waste to the storage hall in the village that normally has a population of 600.
Lowloader trucks for the last 20 km of the journey from Dannenberg to Gorleben have been delivered.
In Lüchow, the major town in the shire where Gorleben lies, school children will take to the streets on Thursday morning. Several hundreds are expected for the protest, which students have mounted almost every year of the 35 since nuclear dumping has been resisted.
There’s enormous demand for places to sleep. Private people are opening their homes to visiting protesters. Tens of thousands are expected. Last year it was 50,000.
Meanwhile a truck with a real-size dummy CASTOR on board has arrived in Berlin to mobilise protest (Pictures).
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At Dahlem near Dahlenburg another protest camp was approved.
Wed 12:39
Rumour that the village of Quickborn is being kettled. It's claimed that an explosives sniffer dog had found something.
Wed 12:54