French nuclear plant explodes

Even after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, big business lobbyists and politicians like Sarkozy in France kept talking about how “safe” nuclear energy supposedly was.

Today, translated from Le Figaro (a conservative, pro-Sarkozy French daily):

Explosion on a nuclear site in the Gard department

12/09/2011 at 13:28

An oven exploded this Monday on the nuclear site of Marcoule in the Gard region, causing a risk of radioactive leakage, said the firefighters and the prefecture.

According to France 3 – Languedoc-Roussillon TV, there is one dead and three injured people. The accident reportedly occurred following a fire in a storage site for radioactive waste. A security cordon is in place.

Marcoule is a site with military links.

Updates on the disaster, in French, are here.

See also here on the disaster.

See also here. And here.

A Greenpeace activist on a motorised paraglider dropped a smoke bomb onto the roof of a French nuclear reactor near Lyon today to stimulate a political debate on nuclear power: here.

Japanese Fukushima Eye-Witnesses Challenge Capitol Hill Lawmakers and US Regulators to Stop Promotion of Nuclear Power: here.

Video: Experts say Fukushima ‘worse’ than Chernobyl: here.

Chilling preview of PBS Nature’s “Radioactive Wolves” episode shows Pripyat, a ghost city near Chernobyl: here.