India nuclear protesters wade into sea to escape police charge via Reuters

(Reuters) – Indian riot police fired tear gas to break up thousands of protesters on a beach near the country’s largest nuclear power project, due to fire up within weeks despite months of opposition.

Demonstrators waded into the crashing waves or escaped in fishing boats as hundreds of police advanced, television images showed. Rocks were thrown at police and several injuries were reported on both sides.

Some 4,000 activists, mainly women and children from fishing villages, had camped on the beach about a mile from the Kudankulam power station to complain about the threat of radiation from the plant near the southern tip of India.

First conceived in 1988, the Russian-built plant was supposed to have gone into operation last year, but protesters surrounded the compound after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan‘s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, spewing radiation and forcing mass evacuations.

They fear a similar accident in a region that was hard hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

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