Left Party criticizes nuclear transports on Hamburg's streets

In Hamburg, on average, one nuclear transport rolls along the streets every week. "Despite the voluntary waiver of nuclear fuel handling in the port of Hamburg, the city is still a transit point and the port is a transshipment point for nuclear cargo," writes the left-wing parliamentary group in a statement published on Thursday.

New inquiries from the parliamentary group had revealed, among other things, that uranium hexafluoride was also handled in the port in 2022 and transported by truck and train over Hamburg territory, it said. In 2013, when the “Atlantic Cartier” caught fire, uranium hexafluoride almost led to a catastrophe right across from the Elbphilharmonie, according to the Left Party.

The inquiries had shown that 62 transports had driven on the streets of Hamburg by the beginning of December last year. "The number of transports for 2022 will therefore end up back at the annual comparative figures since 2020," said the left. The inquiries also revealed that by the beginning of December 66 shipments of so-called other radioactive materials had passed through the port. "Here, too, the number has largely remained unchanged in the third year," said the left-wing faction.

"Long after Chernobyl and Fukushima and shortly before the last German reactor was shut down, we can't talk about exiting - and Hamburg, as a transit and transhipment point, bears some of the responsibility for this," said Stephan Jersch, spokesman for environmental policy for the left-wing faction. But not only nuclear fuel should be banned from the port, "but all nuclear transports - with very few medical exceptions," demanded Jersch. Only then would the people of Hamburg “be safe again”.