Worker killed in explosion at nuclear waste site

A worker died and another was seriously injured in an explosion at a French nuclear waste site today.

The country's Nuclear Safety Authority said no radioactive leaks were detected in the blast at an oven in the Centraco nuclear site. The accident was under control within the hour, the agency said.

Centraco is on the grounds of another nuclear site, Marcoule, in the Languedoc-Roussillon region near the Mediterranean.

"The explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity," the agency said. "There have been no leaks outside of the site."

Those injured were not contaminated with radiation, and the outside of the building that houses the oven showed no sign of damage or contamination either, the agency said in a separate statement.

Officials from France's EDF power company, whose subsidiary operates Centraco, stressed that there was no nuclear reactor on the site and that no waste treated at the site of the explosion came from a reactor.

France is the world's most nuclear-dependent country in the world, with the lion's share of its electricity coming from the 58 nuclear reactors that dot the country.

France is also a major exporter of nuclear power, treats nuclear waste from around the world, and state-owned nuclear giant Areva is one of the country's most prominent companies.