Major safety exercise at French nuclear plant

Wednesday 19th October 2005, 12:00AM BST.

POSSIBLY the biggest emergency exercise ever carried out at the La Hague nuclear plant in France will be held tomorrow.

Details of the scenario are sketchy, but environmental group Greenpeace say it will be a full emergency exercise on the La Hague peninsula involving an evacuation by land and sea.

The head of nuclear campaigns for Greenpeace International, Shaun Burnie, said that although the French authorities have not made the premise of the exercise public, they plan to evacuate schools and public buildings from within a five-kilometre radius of the factory by land and sea.

‘We suspect that France is seeking to comply with obligations to test security laid out by the EU,’ said Mr Burnie, adding that Greenpeace understood from its contacts that the authorities intend to distribute potassium tablets which offer protection against the release of certain types of radioactive material.

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