Dannenberg - German riot police used water cannon yesterday against protesters firing flares who were trying to stop a heavily-guarded nuclear waste train from reaching its destination.
The train was carrying slag from a French plant that reprocesses fuel rods from German reactors, the first such shipment since a ban imposed three years ago. It took one of the biggest peacetime security operations Germany had ever seen to keep the line open. Demonstrators and the law played a cat-and-mouse game as the train wove a secret route across the heart of Germany.
Despite the police presence hundreds of environmental activists brought the train to a brief halt some 50 kms from its destination, a nuclear storage facility in Gorleben, on the Elbe river, by rushing massed ranks of riot police. The train was halted again some 14 kms short of Dannenberg, after activists damaged a section of track by cutting it in order to chain themselves to heavy objects.
Police turned water cannon on the protesters after they fired flares against them. "The situation has become more grave. Protesters have fired flares on police, including helicopters," a police spokesman said.