French nuclear power plant evacuated in bomb alert

PARIS (Reuters)

The nuclear plant was still functioning, EDF added.

“We will know at the start of the afternoon (around 1200 GMT) whether there is a bomb or not,” an EDF spokeswoman said by telephone.

The local authorities said the phone call warning had been made from a phone box in the town of Chinon in the Indre-et-Loire department.

“The police force was on the site at 0700 GMT and the bomb-disposal experts with dogs arrived on site at 0900 GMT,” a local authority spokeswoman said.

The Chinon plant, which has four 900-megawatt nuclear reactors, supplies electricity to around 6 percent of the French population.

Reuters