Thousands guard nuclear shipment

The nuclear waste is sealed in glass bricks on the 12-wagon train

A controversial nuclear waste shipment has crossed by train from France into Germany along a route guarded by thousands of police.

Green activists in France delayed the transport for an hour and more protests are expected in Germany.

But authorities say there has been little trouble so far as the train heads from a reprocessing plant in Normandy to Gorleben in north Germany.

An activist died amid mass protests at a similar shipment last year.

Run over

The 12-wagon train is transporting the nuclear waste, sealed in glass bricks, from La Hague in Normandy to the temporary storage facility at a disused salt mine in Gorleben, lower Saxony.

Environmental activists fear the storage facility will become permanent and might contaminate the local water supply.

The nuclear waste is produced in Germany but sent to France for reprocessing. France insists the waste must return to its country of origin.

On Saturday, about 3,000 people protested at the shipment in Hitzacker, northern Germany.

At the annual shipment last November, an environmentalist was run over and killed when he chained himself to the railway line at Nancy, eastern France.