PARIS (AP) — One person died and another was seriously injured in an explosion Monday in a site that treats nuclear waste in southern France, the country's nuclear safety body said, adding that no radioactive leaks have been detected.
The Nuclear Safety Authority said three other people suffered lesser injuries in the blast at an oven in the Centraco nuclear site.
The Centraco site is located next to another nuclear site, Marcoule, located in Languedoc-Roussillon, in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea.
"According to initial information, the explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity," the agency said in a statement.
Officials from France's EDF power company, whose subsidiary operates Centraco, stressed that there was no nuclear reactor on the site and that no waste treated at the site of the explosion came from a reactor.

PARIS/MARSEILLE Jan 12 (Reuters) - Fire fighters reported a blast at a petrochemical site in Fos-Lavera on Wednesday, the second incident in less than a week in the sprawling industrial zone, but traffic at the nearby oil terminal was not affected.

No one was injured in the incident, which occured just before 0400 GMT on the site of petrochemical plant Compagnie Petrochimique de Berre, a unit of U.S. group LyondellBasell (LYB.N: Quote).

The aftermath of the explosion and an ensuing spill of oil products have now been brought under control, rescue teams told Reuters.

A spokeswoman at LyondellBasell said a fire started in a trench on the site of Compagnie Petrochimique de Berre and that an investigation was being carried out to find out what caused the blast.

"We have heard an explosion but this was a fire really. We are still investigating," she said, adding this had not affected LyondellBasell's neighbouring refinery.

"There has been no consequence, no injury, no output interruption and no consequence for the environment."

An explosion at a chlorine plant in southern France on Thursday killed one man and injured nine, authorities said.

The administration for the Bouches-du-Rhone region said a leak of water containing sodium prompted the explosion. The blast occurred at a plant run by Gazechim in the Mediterranean port of Lavera.

The administration said in a statement that no gases leaked outside the site. Traffic around the site was restricted, and specialists in chemical accidents were there.

A 28-year-old man who worked at the plant died immediately, the administration said, without providing details. The local emergency service said that one other person suffered serious injuries and eight others were treated for chemical poisoning.

The explosion coughed up a black and white cloud and damaged a reservoir, causing chlorine gas to escape, the administration said in a statement.

(Reuters) - A professor at a chemistry college in eastern France was fined 8,000 euros and given a suspended jail sentence on Thursday for causing a lab explosion that killed a colleague and gravely injured a student.

The accident occurred in 2006 when professor Alain Louati went out for lunch and an open bottle of highly inflammable ethylene triggered an explosion that tore through his laboratory in the city of Mulhouse, near the German border.

The blast, which blew out windows and ceilings and blackened walls, killed a professor in a room above the lab and injured a high-school student in an adjacent room. The young woman suffered severe fractures to the head and body, was temporarily in a coma and was left handicapped.

A court in Mulhouse found Louati, 62, guilty of involuntary homicide and causing injury by negligence and gave him a suspended 18-month prison sentence.

At his trial in September, Louati was accused of using substandard rubber tubes and of leaving the flask of ethylene open. Louati denied responsibility for the blast, saying he had closed the bottle and someone must have entered the lab and reopened it.