Protesting against nuclear power is dangerous...

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2004-11-07 12:15pm

A train carrying "Castors" of nuclear waste from France to Germany ran over a protestor who had chained himself to the tracks, severing both of his legs. He died of his injuries a short while later, police reported.

A 23-year old environmental activist paid the ultimate price for his convictions on Sunday. Despite a large security operation, the young man managed to chain himself to the railway tracks near Avricourt, in protest of the latest transport of nuclear waste from a French reprocessing plant in La Hague to a storage facility in Gorleben, Germany.

A spokeswoman for France's SNCF rail operator said the train's driver noticed a group of people sitting on the tracks, and pulled the emergency brake. "One of the people remained sitting, and his legs were cut off and he has died," the spokeswoman said.

The French nuclear technology company, Cogema, said it regretted the "dramatic accident." A company spokesman in Paris said Cogema Logistics staff charged with overseeing the transport couldn't explain how the accident had happened.
The train loaded with highly radioactive nuclear waste had been stopped earlier on Sunday for two hours because of two demonstrators who had chained themselves to the tracks.

The Castor transport was originally scheduled to arrive in Dannenberg, eastern Germany, on Sunday afternoon. From Dannenberg, the containers are loaded onto trucks to be transported to the storage facility in nearby Gorleben.

Dannenberg residents shocked

The citizens' initiative in the Dannenberg region, which helps to plan protest action, said it was "shocked and disturbed" by news of the deadly accident. Organizers said they would discuss what consequences the news had for further planned protest action.

Thousands of demonstrators have been gathering in Dannenberg since Saturday. In past years, the Castor transports saw violent clashes between anti-nuclear activists and police.

The environmental group Greenpeace has warned that the Gorleben storage site is unsafe over the long term and risks contaminating ground water.

DW staff (dc)

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-11-07 12:18pm

I find this hilarious for some reason. The stupidity of people is always something that seeks newer depths of amazement.

Because, you know, freight trains are easily going to stop for you.

UCBooties · Post by **UCBooties** » 2004-11-07 12:19pm

Hooray! And now they just might have a martyr... But realy, I lack the capacity to feel sympathy when confronted by this kind of lunacy. I certainly hope that they don't try to pin this in the company or the engineer, this should be listed as suicide.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2004-11-07 12:42pm

Can't say I'm sympathetic.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-11-07 12:45pm

Maybe he'll win a darwin award.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2004-11-07 12:49pm

UCBooties wrote:Hooray! And now they just might have a martyr... But realy, I lack the capacity to feel sympathy when confronted by this kind of lunacy. I certainly hope that they don't try to pin this in the company or the engineer, this should be listed as suicide.

Many railroad engineers have been in a train that killed someone, maybe even most of them. One even got some random person calling him on the phone and asking why he didn't swerve the train to avoid hitting the person who had died.

With that much precedent, and the (hopefully) obvious fact that trains always have the right of way due to their immense momentum, I doubt that anybody will try to blame this on anybody other than the dumbass martyr and the group he was with.

Then again, Greenpeace is completely, utterly frothing-at-the-mouth crazy. How would spent fuel rods, vitrified and encased in heavy metal, manage to contaminate groundwater? Is it going to suddenly liquify and seep out through the cracks like the Blob Creatures from Harkonneth V? Anyway, in 100 years it'll be less radioactive than the ore it was mined from, and small amounts of radiation aren't anything to be afraid of.

Thousands of demonstrators have been gathering in Dannenberg since Saturday. In past years, the Castor transports saw violent clashes between anti-nuclear activists and police.

Go for it, coppers!

Post by **fgalkin** » 2004-11-07 01:35pm

This is vaguely reminiscent of that dumb bitch protestor being run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Perhaps, now thses dipshits will learn that standing in front of big heavy things=bad. Probably not, though.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2004-11-07 01:35pm

sketerpot wrote:Anyway, in 100 years it'll be less radioactive than the ore it was mined from, and small amounts of radiation aren't anything to be afraid of.

Thats 500 years, not 100.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2004-11-07 01:49pm

IIRC the only way to "stop" a train in time when the driver sees a human sized object is to derail the train and would probaly kill the driver, the person the driver trying to avoid and just anybody who's too close. A train wreck is a pretty thing to see. so why in hell do idiots think that they could stop train carring heavy metals

? I mean do they have special cloning/breeding facility to breed these guy, since I dout that someone that stupid could breed naturally (, but then again fundies seem to breed naturally).

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-11-07 01:50pm

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only people that have an excuse for being hit by trains are morons and the blind and deaf.

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2004-11-07 04:50pm

Watching the news, there could have been three more squished anti-nuc's. But they managed th open the chain in time. The fourth not made it..... Bad luck.

Thinkmarble · Post by **Thinkmarble** » 2004-11-07 04:57pm

Chaining oneself to or just plain sitting on railroad tracks is actually standart tactics for protester in germany.
Normally the person is "found" before the/a train comes near and then has to be carried away. When the he is chained to the tracks and he is no-cooperating this can takes hours.
As any transports has to be protected by a massive police force this causes and increase in cost.
The calculation is simple, driving up the cost till the point is reached when the states are no longer ready or able to carry the cost for the police action so they will start to bill the power companies have to carry the cost, which in turn increases the cost for nuclear power plants.
The point has actually already been reached.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-11-07 05:31pm

Idiot! You don't stop thousands of tons of train on a dime!!!

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-11-07 05:34pm

sketerpot wrote:Many railroad engineers have been in a train that killed someone, maybe even most of them. One even got some random person calling him on the phone and asking why he didn't swerve the train to avoid hitting the person who had died.

ROTFLMAO!!!
Some levels of stupidity should be illegal!

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-11-07 05:40pm

Thinkmarble wrote:Chaining oneself to or just plain sitting on railroad tracks is actually standart tactics for protester in germany.
Normally the person is "found" before the/a train comes near and then has to be carried away. When the he is chained to the tracks and he is no-cooperating this can takes hours.
As any transports has to be protected by a massive police force this causes and increase in cost.
The calculation is simple, driving up the cost till the point is reached when the states are no longer ready or able to carry the cost for the police action so they will start to bill the power companies have to carry the cost, which in turn increases the cost for nuclear power plants.
The point has actually already been reached.

I have seen nuts actually dig in and seal themselves under reinforced concrete, requiring the breaking up of the track to get rid of them.
Fewer police sweeps and higher train speed is a much more economical solution...

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-11-07 05:42pm

I feel no sympathy. His own overzealous idiocy lead him to his death. There are more effective means of protesting; chaining yourself to the railroad tracks isn't one of those means.

Speaking of which, Green Peace does a lot of anti-nuclear protests. Do they do an equal amount of protesting against coal generated power plants or oil generated power plants?

Antares · Post by **Antares** » 2004-11-07 06:58pm

The first thing i thought about this when reading it on "spiegel.de" was how much money is wasted to get rid of those lunatic protesters.

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2004-11-07 07:01pm

These protesters also have problems. Since the Green party entered a coalition with the Social Democrats 1998, they no longer back the protesters up as they did before.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-07 07:31pm

Remind me again why we care if these stupid fucks get run over by a train? Shees, leave 'em to splat.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-11-08 04:56am

This is vaguely reminiscent of that dumb bitch protestor being run over by an Israeli bulldozer.

Of course, it's a lot easier to stop a slow-moving bulldozer when you see an orange-shirted protestor standing some distance away (and he could have always *swerved) than it is to stop a fast-moving freight train in which the engineer probably cannot make out human shapes from a distance or have a lot of time to react.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-11-08 06:22am

You know, a low-level electrical current is already run through railroad tracks as part of the block control mechanism (and to provide an alert when there is damage at some point producing a break in the circuit).

It would not be very hard to increase that current to lethal levels, thus obviating the need for enforcement.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2004-11-08 07:25am

Problem is, increasing the voltage along the railroad tracks to the level needed to be lethal presents it own set of of problems.

i.e generation cost, breaks in the track interupting it, the track overheating, transfer to the train itself, etc

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-11-08 07:32am

Probably tons of dead wildlife. And what if the tracks run through a street crossing?

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-08 09:14am

Damn your logic! *shakefist*

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2004-11-08 09:25am

Ok, so assuming the protest is effective and the train doesn't go to the storage facility.

What the fuck are we supposed to do with the rods?! Keep the train standing there until a new facility is built, satisfying every single whim of environmental wackos?