Gorleben, Germany - Accompanied by a huge police escort, a convoy of trucks was to carry 100 tons of glass-encased nuclear waste Monday 20 kilometres across German countryside to a secure storage warehouse.

On Saturday and Sunday there had been mayhem in the district as violent protesters invaded tracks in a bid to stop a train bringing the waste from La Hague, France. Near the border, three protesters had chained themselves to concrete blocks under a track.

The train reached the railhead in the town of Dannenberg early Monday, 14 hours late, and cranes began carefully shifting the 11 containers onto the trucks.

Riot police were ready for violence after clashing the previous day with protesters who erected flaming barricades and hurled large fireworks at officers.

Other obstacles ahead included 40 farm tractors parked across one of the connecting roads and about 700 protesters who had slept the night on the road in front of the warehouse and refused to move.

Police told the crowd by loudspeaker that the sit-in was illegal, a first step to carrying the protesters away one by one in a ritual established during 10 past transport operations down the years at the storage site.

The waste is from fuel rods used up in German power stations. Germany is storing it at the warehouse and plans to move it later underground to a disused salt mine nearby.

The protesters, who reject nuclear power, aim to draw attention to the issue by disrupting the convoys. Under legislation, Germany is to close all its nuclear power plants within the next 15 years.

The German government has been silent about the protests, but Dieter Althaus, premier of Thuringia state, said Monday the protesters were breaching a national consensus to end nuclear power and store away the waste. (dpa)