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Explosion At French Nuclear Site Kills One

Posted by samzenpus on from the someone-save-the-camembert dept.

syngularyx writes "An explosion took place in an oven Monday at the Marcoule nuclear site near the city of Nimes in the south of France. From the article: 'One person was killed and three were injured in the explosion, following a fire in a storage site for radioactive waste, Le Figaro newspaper said. It is a major site involved with the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. emergency services said.'" Update: 09/12 16:20 GMT by S : Changed headline and summary to reflect that there seems to be no risk of a leak.

15 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Cue more irrational nuclear panic in 3...2... by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    In other news, 30 coal miners die each year in the U.S. alone and no one gives a rats ass.

    Deaths per terawatt hour (from nextbigfuture.com):

    Coal – world average: 161
    Coal – China: 278
    Coal – USA: 15
    Oil: 36
    Natural Gas: 4
    Biofuel/Biomass: 12
    Peat: 12
    Solar: 0.44
    Wind: 0.15
    Hydro: 0.10
    Nuclear: 0.04

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Cue more irrational nuclear panic in 3...2... by kent_eh · · Score: 5, Informative

      In other news:
      a petroleum pipeline explosion has killed at least 100 so far today in Kenya.
      From linked article:

      "The scene is horrific, with charred bodies all around. I cannot differentiate between men and women or boys and girls. All that is left are bones, and the only way to identify the children is from their smaller skeletons."

      --

      ---
      "I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
    2. Re:Cue more irrational nuclear panic in 3...2... by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also, if you had a starship that could travel to Alpha Centauri killing half the passengers it would be the safest form of transport - when measured by the aircraft industry standard terms of deaths per passenger mile.


      (If you think this is off-topic - think about it some more)

    3. Re:Cue more irrational nuclear panic in 3...2... by gfreeman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Once you can drive a car to Alpha Centauri that will become a meaningful statistic.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un sig.
  2. RTFA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article states that there is NO risk of a radioactive leak. Geeezuz H Me, couldn't someone vet this stuff before it gets posted?

    1. Re:RTFA! by alci63 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well... the article says the Nuclear Safety Authority _says_ there is no risk of radioactive leak. They also said the radioactive cloud from Tchernobyl stopped at the country borders :-)

    2. Re:RTFA! by Issarlk · · Score: 5, Funny

      In France, radioactive clouds stop at the country borders. And even if they were to somehow fly over the country, it wouldn't be the cause of an increase of thyroid cancers. Nuclear energy is pretty safe in France.

  3. From Here : by dvaldenaire · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hi there,

    I am french, and i can tell you all : there are no problem in nuclear here. Never. Go back to sleep. Thanks for your attention.

    In fact, here in France, it is almost illegal to put "problem" and "nuclear" in the same sentence without any negation...

    --
    What does it mean, "appended to the end of comments you post"
  4. Re:Slashdot the new Midnight Sun!!! by cultiv8 · · Score: 4, Informative
    My favorite line FTA:

    There are no nuclear reactors at the southern French site

    --
    sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
  5. On the front page of the CBC by perp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Headline: French nuclear waste site blast kills at least 1
    Sidebar: At least 61 killed in Kenya pipeline explosion

    --
    There are two kinds of sysadmins: paranoids and losers. I'm both kinds.
  6. First Sentence of TFA by asylumx · · Score: 4, Informative

    There was no risk of a radioactive leak after the blast

    Slashdot, please fix the damned headline.

  7. They're "darkies" so who cares? by Quila · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not like they're real people or anything.

    This was one white European guy, so he matters far more than they do.

    It's also not scary radioactive material, just plain old oil.

    All this together makes it not so newsworthy.

    1. Re:They're "darkies" so who cares? by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Funny

      This was one white European guy, so he matters far more than they do.

      That's racist, sir. Racist. France employs a lot of North African immigrants to do dirty, dangerous work, it's far too early to jump to conclusions about whether we should care about the corpse.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  8. Re:Slashdot the new Midnight Sun!!! by horza · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Agreed. This is beyond pathetic. One of the first sentences is "There was no risk of a radioactive leak after the blast" and later it says there are no nuclear reactors on that site. The fact somebody was killed in an industrial accident is sad, not matter how many times it happens each day, but the nuclear element is spurious.

    There is nothing quoted that even insinuates there is a remote possibility of a leak, and so I agree with lwatcdr that the whole Slashdot post is a made-up lie. This is majorly damaging to the reputation of Slashdot.

    Phillip.

    --
    Property for sale in Nice, France
  9. Thanks for changing the subject line by tp1024 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's unfortunately a very rare thing to see such mistakes corrected, so thanks a lot for doing it.