Nuke fuel safety urged after breach

Heightened supervision to ensure the safety of nuclear waste was strongly urged by officials and experts after the country's largest nuclear power plants operator breached regulations when it transported spent fuel.

Everclean, a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC), changed vehicles and its transportation route without approval when it delivered nuclear waste from Guangdong-based Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant on July 5, according to the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) on its website.

The call for strengthened safety comes amid rapid expansion of the country's nuclear power industry. Li Ganjie, vice-minister of environmental protection and director of NNSA, has said that China's monitoring and management capacity of nuclear fuel and waste is lagging behind the nuclear power industry's rapid growth.