Explosion at nuclear reactor in France kills worker

PARIS – An explosion and fire Monday at a French nuclear-waste processing site killed one person and injured four, heightening concern of safety risks from atomic energy following the disaster in Japan six months ago.

There was no chemical or radioactive discharge from the Centraco plant in the town of Codolet in southern France, Carole Trivi, a spokeswoman for the owner Electricite de France, said by telephone.

Europe’s biggest power producer, which also operates France’s 58 nuclear reactors, treats low-level radioactive waste at the plant about 80 miles northwest of Marseilles, the country’s second-biggest city. France depends on nuclear reactors for about 75 percent of its power needs, the most of any country.

This is the first time a “drama on this scale” occurred at the site, according to Socodei, the EDF unit that operates the facility. Socodei said the explosion was in a building housing a furnace where metallic waste is treated by fusion. An investigation will be carried out. “There is no risk of leaks to come,” EDF said in a later statement.

The accident happened as the nation’s nuclear regulator is carrying out safety checks at the country’s reactors and some of its treatment sites to determine whether they can withstand floods, earthquakes and loss of power and cooling. The inspections were triggered by Japan’s atomic disaster in March.

A fire in a furnace at the Centraco site was brought under control at 1:06 p.m. local time, leaving one of the injured in critical condition from burns, according statements from Socodei and the atomic regulator.

The furnace, which began operations in 1999, melts and compresses low-level radioactive metals and was one of two at the site, according to the utility. Both have been stopped.

“There was no radioactive leakage outside the installation,” the French nuclear safety authority, known as ASN, said in a statement on its website.

“Today’s incident in France is another example that we move into action,” rather than just discussing safety, Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a news conference in Vienna. French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said she would visit the site.

Nearby populations weren’t advised to take any specific measures such as staying indoors or being evacuated, Trivi said. The person who died in the explosion was an employee of Socodei.

Socodei is aiming to expand operations because of the need to treat increasing amounts of waste from reactors, according to the report. The ASN watchdog called in the head of Centraco in November 2008 to discuss safety “gaps” and progress was noted at the end of last year in improving the situation, the document states.