MONTREAL - Opponents of Hydro-Quebec's plan to refurbish the province's only nuclear reactor at Gentilly-2 organized a mock drill on Sunday in the neighbouring town of Becancour.
The drill came on the anniversary of the incident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after a tsunami and earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011.
Volunteers around the plant, near the city of Trois-Rivieres, provided motorists with information about the risks from the reactor as well as precautionary measures to take.
According to Les Centricois et Mauriciens pour le declassement nucleaire, one of the groups behind the initiative, incidents often take place at the reactor. They argue that Gentilly-2's refurbishment will be "an environmental and fiscal disaster" for Quebec.
To keep the reactor operating until 2040, Hydro-Quebec is planning to spend $2 billion to replace large parts of the reactor.
Of Canada's five nuclear power plants, Gentilly-2 is the only one to sit on a fault line. The Laurentian fault line runs down the St. Lawrence Valley and has produced earthquakes as large as 6.5 on the Richter scale.
