In France there was a strong earthquake, the strongest of the last 16 years

AFP

Four people were injured, one seriously, in the strongest earthquake in the last 16 years in France. The 5.4-degree quake on the Richter scale was recorded just before noon near Montelimar, in the Drome (south of Lyon), causing the largest damage in the nearby town of Teil in the Ardeche department. As a result of the earthquake, the reactors of the Cruas nuclear power plant will remain switched off "in the next few hours" for a "thorough check", announced the prefect of Drome, Hugues Moutouh, although "no damage to buildings has been detected and the structures are functioning normally".

The earthquake had its epicenter in the Ardeche, "26 km south-east of Privas," the French central seismological office (Bcsf) in Strasbourg reported in a statement. The most affected city is Montelimar where a person was seriously injured when scaffolding fell. In the department, three other people reported light injuries following "a panic attack".

However, the nuclear site is of particular concern. According to the anti-nuclear collective of Vaucluse, the epicenter is "less than 20 kilometers from the nuclear plant where the quake in the engine room of the reactors was felt, and 30 kilometers from the Tricastin atomic site".

The group points out that the Tricastin site "located on an active seismic fault and below the Donzere-Mondragon canal" is "the most dangerous nuclear site in Europe and extends over 615 hectares", and therefore demands that it be stopped immediately. The Nuclear Safety Agency (ASN) has assured that the earthquake did not cause "any apparent damage" to the sites and that it would examine "the conditions under which the reactors can be restarted".

A spokeswoman explained that switching off the reactors could last "a few days", depending on what comes out of the inspections. On the other hand, the Tricastin nuclear power plant, further away from the epicenter of the earthquake, will not be stopped, since no warning threshold has been measured, the ASN added. The quake was felt up to Saint-Etienne, Grenoble, Lyon and even in the south of France, but it was in Teil, a town on the border with Montelimar with over 8,500 inhabitants, that it suffered the greatest material damage. According to the mayor of the city, Olivier Peverelli, who claims to have "feared for his life", two bell towers "are about to fall" and the top floor of the town hall is inaccessible because "the ceilings have come down".

He has opened three gyms for 400-500 people that, according to him, should not spend the night at home. Isabelle Massebeuf, regional councilor, said that the Xavier Mallet high school building (about a thousand students) was damaged: "the beams have moved and the regional services will go on site tomorrow (Tuesday) with the engineers to do an inspection". According to Bcsf data, no such strong earthquake has been recorded in mainland France since 2003. In 2011 a 5.5-magnitude quake was detected but its epicenter was at sea, 100 kilometers from Ajaccio.

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