In Germany N-waste protests continue

German police clashed with protestors as two activists were trying to stop a train carrying 123 tons of radioactive nuclear waste from France into Germany.

Two protesters dangled from a 75-meter high bridge above the train’s route near the town of Morschen early Sunday, while about 50 other activists blocked the tracks, halting the train for a short time.

Police dispersed the crowd using batons and tear gas and the train is rolling again continuing its way to Dannenberg where the waste will be transferred to trucks for the remainder of its trip to a storage facility in the north German town of Gorleben.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Gorleben on Saturday to protest the arrival of the highly-radioactive nuclear waste.

Meanwhile, police forces used truncheons and mace against an estimated 150 activists, who were attempting to dig a hole under a railway track to prevent the shipment.

Some of the protestors threw stones at security forces, while others blocked the road using tractors.

Other reports indicated that trains were delayed as the activists chained themselves to the tracks but they were eventually removed and arrested by the police.

Activists say the temporary storage facility at Gorleben is not safe and the nuclear waste aboard the train has radioactivity levels twice as high as those generated by Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986.

Eleven steel containers holding the nuclear waste are being shipped from La Hague in France by the state-controlled nuclear engineering company Areva.

Chancellor Angela Merkel labeled the move by the activists as, “not a peaceful demonstration, but a criminal offence.”

The so-called Castor trains — cask for storage of radioactive material — have been met by mass demonstrations for the past 30 years. The protests began when they first started to dump nuclear waste at the Gorleben facility.

The protests are also directed at Merkel’s center-right government, which recently passed legislation to extend the life span of Germany’s 17 nuclear power stations beyond the previous deadline of 2022.