Nuclear explosion kills one in French

An explosion in a furnace at the Marcoule nuclear waste treatment site in southern France killed one person on Monday, but there was no leak of radioactive material outside the site, officials said.Four people were injured, one with serious burns, in the blast at the Centraco site, owned by French power utility Electricite De France (EDF) and adjacent to the Marcoule nuclear research centre. The Centraco site does not house any nuclear reactors. Fatalities in accidents at active nuclear sites in France are extremely rare, although deaths occasionally occur during plant construction. Monday’s blast comes amid heightened safety concerns in the wake of Japans Fukushima disaster in March.The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it was seeking information from France about the explosion and had activated its incident and emergency centre.