The UK Government is being called to urgently intervene after pictures of the Sellafield Nuclear site revealed a crumbling infrastructure around hundreds of tonnes of radioactive material.

The SDLP has already called on the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency to accelerate its programme of work at the Sellafield site to ensure that public safety is not compromised.

MP for South Down, Margaret Ritchie said the Government must protect the public from a nuclear catastrophe.

She said: "I have warned the Government and the Nuclear Decommissioning agency about the state of nuclear fuel storage ponds at Sellafield. The ponds, containing highly irradiated material, have been allowed to degrade to the point where concrete is fractured and cracked.

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"If an accident, or a terrorist attack, takes place causing these ponds to drain, the huge volume of fuel will ignite upon contact with air resulting in the dispersal of huge amounts of irradiated material across a wide area. This puts the public, especially those of us on the set coast of Ireland, at immediate, grave risk.

"The SDLP has argued for years that proper decommissioning and cleanup of the Sellafield plant and proper safety standards were not adhered to, putting the public at risk. The British Government is in complete control of the domestic Nuclear industry. They're paying £1.7bn every year to private companies to clean up Sellafield. And those same companies now say it will be decades before these high risk ponds are cleaned.

"That is utterly unacceptable and I will be raising this as a matter of urgency with Prime Minister David Cameron."

(CD/IT)