Eleven workers have been injured in a fire during demolition work at a decommissioned nuclear power plant in southern Germany, police said on Wednesday.
The incident took place at the Grafenrheinfeld plant in the state of Bavaria, which was shut down in 2015 under Germany’s phase-out of nuclear power.
Police in nearby Schweinfurt said no hazardous substances or radioactive material escaped during the fire on Wednesday, and the local population was not in danger.
A tent went up in flames after grinding work, causing a “small fire in the ventilation hoses of a mobile air filter system,” operator Preussenelektra said.
Firefighters extinguished the flames within minutes, but not before 11 workers were slightly injured. Police said five of the injured were taken to hospital.
The federal nuclear supervisory authority has been informed, the operator added.
The Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant was commissioned in 1981.
Operations ended in 2015, after Germany decided to phase out nuclear power in 2011 following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
The last nuclear reactors in Germany were switched off in 2023.
Work to dismantle the Grafenrheinfeld plant began in 2018, with the highly prominent cooling towers being successfully demolished in August 2024.
