Germany says it wants France to shut down its oldest nuclear plant as soon as possible amid reports Friday, March 4 that an incident at the facility two years ago was more serious than previously known, the Associated Press reports.
German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcaster WDR reported a series of problems when engineers tried to tackle a minor water leak that ended with an emergency shutdown of one of the two reactors at the Fessenheim plant, which lies just across the Rhine that marks the border between France and Germany.
The reports cite a letter from the French Nuclear Safety Authority to the head of the nuclear plant detailing the incident on April 9, 2014.
"It's not the first incident or the first problem that we know about from this reactor, and that's why the environment minister demands the reactor be shut down as soon as possible," said Stephan Haufe, a spokesman for Germany's environment ministry, according to AP.
Germany has also expressed concern about nuclear plants in neighboring Belgium and Switzerland in recent years. The French Nuclear Safety Authority said Friday the 2014 incident was minor and was neither minimized nor hidden. The nuclear plant has been certified to function for another decade, it said.
The French government said last year it would close the plant no later than 2018 as part of a plan to reduce dependency on nuclear power.
