Worker killed in industrial blast

A WORKER was killed in an explosion at a French nuclear waste site yesterday, but officials said there was no radioactive leak and the authorities quickly declared the emergency over.

Four people were also injured, one with serious burns, in the blast at the Centraco site, owned by French power utility EDF and adjacent to the Marcoule nuclear research centre on the Rhone near the southern city of Orange.

EDF said the blast was contained within a furnace that was used to melt down scrap metal, from nuclear plants, which emitted only low levels of radiation.

An executive from the plant operator, EDF subsidiary Socodei, said it would most likely be classified as Level 1 on the seven-point international scale of nuclear incidents.