The World - News from Dec. 8, 1988

Opposition politicians in West Germany said that economic pressure may have led officials to cover up a 1987 nuclear accident, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl demanded a “complete explanation” of the accident at the Biblis plant in December, 1987. The incident involved a malfunctioning valve that went uncorrected for 15 hours, allowing a small amount of radioactive steam to be released into the atmosphere when it was finally being repaired. At the same time, six malfunctions at West German nuclear power plants in the past year--including Biblis--were investigated and reclassified as serious by the Bonn government after company operators initially rated them as insignificant, the West German Environment Ministry announced.