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Under the dome: Fears Pacific nuclear 'coffin' is leaking
As nuclear explosions go, the US "Cactus" bomb test in May 1958 was relatively small—but it has left a lasting legacy for the Marshall Islands in a dome-shaped radioactive dump.
The dome—described by a UN chief Antonio Guterres as "a kind of coffin"—was built two decades after the blast in the Pacific ocean region.
The US military filled the bomb crater on Runit island with radioactive waste, capped it with concrete, and told displaced residents of the Pacific's remote Enewetak atoll they could safely return home.
But Runit's 45-centimetre (18-inch) thick concrete dome has now developed cracks.
And because the 115-metre wide crater was never lined, there are fears radioactive contaminants are leaching through the island's porous coral rock into the ocean.
The concerns have intensified amid climate change. Rising seas, encroaching on the low-lying nation, are threatening to undermine the dome's structural integrity.
Jack Ading, who represents the area in the Marshalls' parliament, calls the dome a "monstrosity".
"It is stuffed with radioactive contaminants that include plutonium-239, one of the most toxic substances known to man," he told AFP.
"The coffin is leaking its poison into the surrounding environment. And to make matters even worse, we're told not to worry about this leakage because the radioactivity outside of the dome is at least as bad as the radioactivity inside of it."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 28 2019, @07:44PM (2 children)
> 800 Pacific Islanders, who live a subsistence lifestyle in one of the most remote places in the world are supposed to make their own nuclear power station.
"Something else" could be selling it to the highest bidder, for their ... energy generation ... needs.
Those early nukes probably didn't consume a significant amount of the fissile material, and we learnt how to make do with less since.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday May 28 2019, @08:10PM (1 child)
Go to one of the most isolated places on the planet to collect some dangerous material covered by a massive concrete dome?
The highest bidder is going to want to be paid to do that.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 29 2019, @06:06AM
Compared to refining their own Pu, some people will volunteer a lot of their fellow citizens (those who want to leave the camp for a few days) to sort through any pile of rubble.