German police detained more than 70 anti-nuclear activists on Friday as a controversial shipment of nuclear waste began its journey from a power station to a dump in northern Germany under heavy guard.
Police said they had taken 50 people into custody from a camp of protesters around 100 yards from the Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant in southwestern Germany. They detained an additional 20 protesting outside the plant.Six activists briefly held up the convoy of trucks by forming a human chain across the street. Around 50 fellow protesters outside the police barricade shouted support.
Police estimated there were around 400 demonstrators along the route, which was guarded by dozens of police vehicles, helicopters, two water cannons and a tank.
The trucks were due to carry three containers of nuclear waste from the plant to a railway loading station two miles away, where a convoy will be assembled along with two rail containers from France and another from a German plant.
The containers are expected to set off on Monday to the Gorleben medium-term nuclear waste depot, east of Hanover, a favorite target of the anti-nuclear movement.
Officials say around 30,000 police and border guards will be needed to protect the shipment, making it the biggest security operation in German peacetime history.
Protests have heated up ahead of the shipment, and suspected anti-nuclear activists have sabotaged rail lines, smashed windows of public buildings in Hamburg and daubed walls with anti-nuclear slogans.