An emergency has been declared at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation after a portion of a tunnel that that contains rail cars full of nuclear waste collapsed.
The Washington state Department of Ecology says officials detected no release of radiation and no workers were injured.
No workers were inside the tunnel when it collapsed Tuesday morning, but nearby workers were evacuated and others who were farther away were told to remain indoors.
The U.S. Department of Energy said the collapsed patch of ground covered about 400 square feet. The agency says the rail tunnels are hundreds of feet long, with about eight feet of soil covering them. The DOE says the incident caused the soil above the tunnel to sink between 2 and 4 feet.
Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons and is now the largest depository of radioactive defense waste that must be cleaned. (AP)
