with protesters who disrupted the passage of a train carrying reprocessed nuclear waste from France to Germany. The train carrying the nuclear waste was heading for Dannenberg where the 123 tonnes of waste was loaded onto trucks and taken to the nearby storage facility of Gorleben, in central Germany. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Dannenberg to signal their opposition to the cargo. Organisers said 50,000 people had turned out but police said the figure was closer to 20,000. Around 16,000 police were mobilised to deal with the protests. Post Fukushima In light of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, public opposition intensified. 60,000 Germans participated in a protest on 12 March 2011, forming a 45-km human chain from Stuttgart to the Neckarwestheim power plant. 110,000 people protested in 450 other German towns on 14 March, with opinion polls indicating 80% of Germans opposed the government's extension of nuclear power. On 15 March 2011, Angela Merkel said that seven nuclear power plants which went online before 1980 would be temporarily closed and the time would be used to study speedier renewable energy commercialization. Merkel has effectively reversed a previous decision to keep older nuclear plants operating beyond their previously designated life span. Former proponents of nuclear energy such as Angela Merkel, Guido Westerwelle, Stefan Mappus have changed their positions, yet 71% of the population believe that to be a tactical manoeuvre related to upcoming state elections. In the largest anti-nuclear demonstration ever held in Germany, some 250,000 people protested on 26 March under the slogan "Fukushima reminds - shut off all nuclear plants." The 27 March state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate saw the Greens gain their voting share significantly as a result of their long-time anti-nuclear politics, ending up with the second largest share of the vote in the Baden-Württemberg election. In March 2011, more than 200,000 people took part in anti-nuclear protests in four large German cities, on the eve of state elections. Organisers called it the biggest anti-nuclear demonstration the country has seen, with police estimating that 100,000 people turned out in Berlin alone. Hamburg, Munich and Cologne also saw big demonstrations. The New York Times reported that "most Germans have a deep-seated aversion to nuclear power, and the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan has galvanized opposition". Thousands of Germans demanding an end to the use of nuclear power took part in nationwide demonstrations on