nuclear-news

Anti nuclear protests draws thousands of marchers in Taipei, Taiwan

THOUSANDS IN TAIWAN RALLY AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER Yahoo 7 News, May 20, 2013, TAIPEI (AFP) – Thousands of Taiwanese marched through the capital Taipei on Sunday urging the government to halt construction of a nearly completed nuclear power plant, citing the Japanese atomic crisis.

The demonstrators chanted slogans like “No Nuke for Our Children” during the march which extended for miles as they evoked memories of the March 2011 Fukushima crisis sparked by an earthquake and tsunami.

Police estimates of the turnout were not immediately available while
the organisers claimed 30,000 people took part. They said some
protesters would hold an overnight sit-in outside parliament.

“The Fukushima accident told us that a nuclear power plant is very
risky,” Lee Chou-lan, spokesman for the Taiwan Environmental
Protection Union which organised the event, told AFP.

Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly
hit by earthquakes. In September 1999 a 7.6-magnitude quake killed
around 2,400 people the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s
recent history.

“The government must immediately halt the construction of the fourth
nuclear power plant. As various surveys show that nearly 70 percent of
the people in Taiwan oppose the plant, there is no need for a
referendum as guaranteed by the government,” Lee said.

The controversial plant, in the coastal Kungliao district near Taipei,
is about 90 percent completed and due to come on line in 2015,
according to its operator the state-owned Taiwan Power Company
(Taipower).

Construction began in 1999 but the plant has been the subject of
intense political wrangling ever since…… The three existing
nuclear plants supply about 20 percent of Taiwan’s electricity. But
the first and second atomic plants and several other power stations
are due to be shut down in the near future.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/17244394/thousands-in-taiwan-rally-against-nuclear-power/

May 20, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, Turkey