Areva resumes operations in Niger after suicide bomb attack

France’s nuclear giant Areva (EPA:AREVA) has partially restarted uranium production at its Somair mine in Niger, which was damaged in a suicide bomb attack late last month, a company official said Wednesday.

Pascal Bernasconi, director-general of Somair, said output at the mine had restarted after teams worked around the clock to repair the site’s electrical plant, damaged by a car bomb in the May 23 attack.

“We partially restarted production at Somair on Tuesday,” he told Reuters, without specifying what share of output had been restarted. “We will find a way of bring the rest of the plant online.”

Somair is the fourth largest uranium mine worldwide.

Suicide bombers staged twin attacks on Somair that killed 26 people and wounded 30 on May 23.

Image: Roland Huziaker via Wikimedia Commons