Nuclear Waste on Its Way to Storage Site

With thousands of police guarding the route, 60 tons of atomic waste from power plants in the towns of Gundremmingen and Neckarwestheim started a controversial rail journey north to a temporary storage site. Worried about violence, as well as danger to the hazardous cargo, energy officials started the trip ahead of schedule to foil anti-nuclear activists. Protesters by the hundreds, instead of the expected thousands, rushed to try to stop the transport, blocking the entrance to a nuclear plant in the south and tunneling under a road. The activists say the containers are not leakproof and could cause a disaster similar to the one at Chernobyl.