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News / Northwest

Tunnel collapse renews safety concerns about nuclear site

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS and MANUEL VALDES, Associated Press
Published: May 10, 2017, 9:30am
3 Photos
An emergency sign flashes by the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on Tuesday in Richland. A portion of an underground tunnel containing rail cars filled with radioactive waste collapsed at a sprawling storage facility in a remote area of Washington state, forcing an evacuation of some workers at the site that made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades after World War II.
An emergency sign flashes by the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on Tuesday in Richland. A portion of an underground tunnel containing rail cars filled with radioactive waste collapsed at a sprawling storage facility in a remote area of Washington state, forcing an evacuation of some workers at the site that made plutonium for nuclear weapons for decades after World War II. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes) Photo Gallery

RICHLAND — The collapse of a tunnel containing radioactive waste at the Hanford nuclear weapons complex underscored what critics have long been saying: that the toxic remnants of the Cold War are being stored in haphazard and unsafe conditions, and time is running out to deal with the problem.

“Unfortunately, the crisis at Hanford is far from an isolated incident,” said Kevin Kamps of the anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear.

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