A nuclear waste site in southern France had an explosion Monday that killed one person, seriously burned another and slightly injured three others. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The Nuclear Safety Authority said no radioactive leaks have been detected in the blast at 12:37 p.m. at an oven in the Centraco nuclear site. The accident was under control within the hour, the agency said in a statement.
Centraco is located on the grounds of another nuclear site, Marcoule, in the Languedoc-Roussillon region near the Mediterranean Sea.
“According to initial information, the explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity,” the statement said. “There have been no leaks outside of the site.”
Those injured were not contaminated with radiation, and the outside of the building that houses the oven showed no sign of damage or contamination either, the agency said in a separate statement.
Officials from France’s EDF power company, whose subsidiary operates Centraco, stressed that there was no nuclear reactor on the site and that no waste treated at the site of the explosion came from a reactor. Spokeswoman Carole Trivi said a fire broke out after the explosion, but it has since been brought under control.
The cause of the blast was not immediately known, and an investigation has been opened, Trivi said.
The material at Centraco comes from nuclear sites and therefore is mildly radioactive, spokeswoman Carole Trivi said. She said the site treats mostly waste from EDF’s own power plants, as well as a small amount of material from hospitals or medical research labs.
Nothing comes from weapons manufacture, she said.
