Police have clashed with activists trying to halt a train
carrying nuclear waste from France to Germany.
Officers used batons, pepper spray, tear gas and water
cannon to disperse about 250 activists who were trying to sabotage railway
tracks.
The activists hurled fireworks at officers and set a
police vehicle on fire, police said.
Earlier, the train was halted after activists lowered
themselves on ropes from a bridge over the tracks.
The clashes near Dannenberg, northern Germany, followed
peaceful protests against the train on Saturday by tens of thousands of people.
About a dozen protesters were injured on Sunday,
demonstrators were quoted as saying by local media reports. Police gave no
reports of injuries on their side.
The train, made up of 14 wagons containing 123 tonnes of
reprocessed nuclear waste in glass and steel containers, is heading to a
storage site in Gorleben, northern Germany.
Activists maintain that neither the waste containers nor
the site are safe.
The BBC’s Berlin correspondent Stephen Evans says that
the plan is to transfer the waste to lorries for the final part of the journey
but the police and protesters are now trying to out-manoeuvre each other in the
countryside along the route.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to extend the
lifespan of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants despite strong public opposition
has highlighted the issue of the waste trains.
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