DANNENBERG, Germany — The Associated Press reports that anti-nuclear protesters delayed the progress of a shipment of nuclear waste on Wednesday, forcing the trainload of containers to a halt several times with small blockades along its route to a dump in northern Germany.
The train stopped for the fourth time since crossing into Germany as it neared the northern town of Lueneburg while police cleared away people who had blocked the tracks a few miles ahead. Police said 27 people were detained after they occupied tracks used by high-speed trains, forcing one train into an emergency stop.
The waste shipment was stopped earlier for about two hours south of the city of Bremen by two protesters who chained themselves to the track and had to be cut free by police — the same tactic two men used to hold up the train for an hour Tuesday night in the western city of Mannheim.
Before that, another group of about 12 protesters forced a 1 1/2-hour delay by occupying the tracks as others set fire to tires nearby.
The train, carrying 1,320 tons of waste, left a reprocessing plant at La Hague in western France Monday. With 12 containers, it is the biggest shipment yet to the facility at Gorleben.
The French leg of 870-mile journey was largely incident-free, but hundreds of activists and local farmers have been protesting since the weekend in the region around the dump site at Gorleben, a focus of Germany’s anti-nuclear movement since the dump got the go-ahead from the local government in 1977.
The waste was due to arrive later Wednesday at a rail terminal in the town of Dannenberg, where the containers will be loaded on trucks for the 12-mile trip to an above-ground shed near Gorleben, about 75 miles southeast of Hamburg.
Authorities have sealed the terminal and banned demonstrations within 50 yards of either side of the final stretch of the route.
In the town of Hitzacker, just short of Dannenberg, about 200 people gathered at the railroad station, which was closed off by metal barricades topped with a coil of barbed wire, ahead of the train’s arrival.
The shipment is the first to the site since last November, when demonstrators defied some 17,500 police and staged sit-down protests along the route through Germany. An estimated 10,000-15,000 officers are in place for the latest transport.
Waste shipments to Gorleben resumed in March last year following a three-year break. The previous German government had suspended shipments after radioactive leakage was discovered in some containers.
Spent fuel from Germany’s 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that oblige Germany to take back the waste.
Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.