Nuclear waste: a landslide on the Bure site killed one – Le Figaro

The accident occurred Tuesday at midday. Another person was seriously injured and was still stuck in the early afternoon, in this underground laboratory based in the Meuse, which is studied the possibility to store the most radioactive waste.

One person died and another was seriously injured after a landslide occurred Tuesday on the underground laboratory site of the National Agency for the management of nuclear waste (Andra) in Bure, in Meuse.

The two victims were in an underground tunnel to several tens of meters underground at the time of the collapse, said the aid, called on site in mid-day. Contacted by Le Figaro , Andra states that the accident occurred at about 12:45 ET the two victims had not yet been brought out of the underground laboratory in early afternoon. According to L’Est Républicain , a command post was set up on the site.

This is part of the underground laboratory named landfill project Cigéo. It must welcome, in this context, the most radioactive waste (3% of the total nuclear waste), 500 meters underground, as well as those with the longest life span (over 300,000 years). For now, only the feasibility of deep geological disposal of these wastes is studied there. No waste of this type is therefore currently on site.

This project should last for several years. Cigéo, led by Andra and challenged by environmentalists and local associations, must still be approved by Parliament. The government announced last year that a specific text would be presented in 2016, after trying to move things forward via an article of the law Macron eventually censured by the Constitutional Council. The project schedule foresees an authorization decree in 2018 and industrial commissioning in 2025. The construction of storage facilities could begin in 2020.

An accident had already occurred in 2002 the site of this laboratory before its opening. A worker of 33 years who worked more than 200 meters deep in the main well was crushed by a ventilation tube several hundred kilos, which had separated at about fifteen meters above him. The accident had caused the work stoppage and the court of Bar-le-Duc, seized by a labor inspector, had demanded a stop site for a week. A few months earlier, another worker was injured in a fall from eleven meters after the opening “by mistake” a hatch on which it stood. Work had been suspended for a month.