Akhir 21, 1432 H/March 26, 2011, SPA -- Germany's anti-nuclear movement held demonstrations in four major cities Saturday, pressing its advantage after the post-tsunami Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan had increased concern over reactor safety, dpa reported. In the port city of Hamburg, police counted 40,000 protesters. The marchers, who waved flags and banners, stopped in front of an inner-city sales centre run by Swedish-owned Vattenfall, the main utility in the city, and yelled, "Switch the power stations off now." Three of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants are located near the city. Eight of the 17 are currently idle, either for repairs or because of a moratorium ordered by Chancellor Angela Merkel after this month's Japanese disaster. The organizers of the parades in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Colognbe claimed a total of 210,000 demonstrators innationwide. All three opposition parties sent supporters to the Berlin rally. The Social Democrats and Greens favour a resumption of a switch-off plan that would have retired all the nuclear power stations by about 2022. Merkel had given the plants extensions, the longest till about 2036, though she is now reviewing the future of nuclear power again. "We are demonstrating for the older power plants to be decommissioned without compensation and for the extension to be cancelled," Greens co-leader Juergen Trittin told the Berlin rally. The third party, the Left, also seeks an end to nuclear power. Every day since the disaster began, accounts of releases of radioactive water have been front-page news in the German media and on TV news. One sixth of Germany goes to the polls in provincial elections Sunday and the disaster has become a key issue. Merkel, campaigning for her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at Trier in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, rejected charges that her three-month moratorium for the eight plants was a vote- canvassing trick. "Whether there's an election campaign or not, whether Japan is 9,000 kilometres away or not, the fact that a sensible person wants to have a re-think in such a situation and says, I can't ignore this: that is common sense and that's what we'll apply," she said. Merkel told a crowd of 800 her policy was to "abolish nuclear power in a sensible way." An immediate switch-off of all the reactors at once was not an option, she said.
