GERMANY: ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTESTERS CONFRONT POLICE

Описание: (5 Mar 1997) Natural Sound

Anti-nuclear protesters battled with police in Germany on Wednesday as thousands of officers cleared the way for the last leg of a controversial nuclear waste transport.

Police used water cannon to disperse some six-thousand demonstrators staging a sit- in to try and block the transport.

By mid-afternoon, the six flatbed trucks reached finally their destination, a storage site at Gorleben, after a 20-kilometre (12-mile) trip from the Dannenberg train station.

Vowing to prevent trucks from transferring nuclear waste to a storage in northern Germany, environmental activists continued their protest on Wednesday.

Escorted by hundreds of police, a six-truck convoy left the Dannenberg train station hours late and began the last leg of its journey.

The trucks stopped every few meters (yards) as police cleared away protesters.

Dogged by thousands of protesters along the route, the six flatbed trucks slowly moved forward.

Hundreds of police in riot gear secured the convoy on both sides as it rumbled through the countryside.

Officers charged into fields wielding batons and used water cannon to keep away protesters.

The environmental activists threw stones and bottles in return and set straw on fire along the route.

Activists said at least 46 demonstrators were injured, including two who were taken to hospital by helicopter.

Police confirmed some demonstrators were injured, but had no immediate details.

After a three-and-a-half hour trip, the convoy rolled through the heavy steel gates of the Gorleben complex to a chorus of whistles from protesters, backed by police into trees lining the final stretch of road.

The nuclear waste from German power plants had been reprocessed in France and then returned under an agreement requiring its storage in Germany.

Germany has no reprocessing plant.

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