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Bad weather at Blayais
24 January 2009

A non-nuclear site emergency was declared for a few hours during strong winds at the Blayais nuclear power plant near Bordeaux in France. Just before 10am, wind speeds reached levels that triggered emergency steps within the plant site and the plant's owner-operator Electricté de France informed the Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité De Sûreté Nucléaire, ASN) of the situation. The four reactors at the plant continued to operate normally and by 2pm the winds had subsided. Meteo France reported winds of around 75 km/h in the plant's locality on the Gironde river near the Atlantic coast at 10am, but these had dropped to 55 km/h by 2pm.