National
More concerns over safety at the Ascó nuclear plant in Tarragona
By h.b.
Apr 23, 2008 - 8:02 AM

A waste metal company from Reus has noted another error at the Ascó nuclear plant near Tarragona. On Monday a lorry carrying radioactive waste was allowed to leave the plant and travel for some 62 kilometres from the plant to the Hidesa scrap metal plant in Reus.

The Hidesa company has the contract to deal with non-radioactive waste from the plant, but their own detectors discovered the error which could be related to the escape of radioactive material at the plant which is now known to have taken place last November, and the seriousness of which was hidden for months.

Two top managers of the nuclear plant have already been sacked over the matter, and this latest incident will do little to build confidence in management.

A 1.5 km area round the plant has been inspected now and 1,600 people are being tested for any contamination. All the people tested including two groups of schoolchildren who visited the plant are reported to be fine, although there are reports that radioactivity has been discovered on the bank of the Ebro river.

The President of the CSN Nuclear Safety Council, Carmen Martínez Ten, has said that with the data now available, they can ‘guarantee’ that the risk to the population and the environment is ‘irrelevant’, and that the controls carried out so far on the workers and people who have been in the plant show ‘an absence of contamination’.