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The huge dome built over a crater left behind by one of the nuclear tests on Runit Island in Enewetak in the Marshall Islands
At the time of the nuclear explosions, the May 1958 American "Cactus" bombshell was relatively small – but it left a lasting legacy in the Marshall Islands in a domed radioactive discharge.
The dome – described by Antonio Guterres, chief of the United Nations, as "a sort of coffin" – was built two decades after the explosion in the Pacific Ocean region.
The US Army filled the crater with the bomb on the island of Runit with radioactive waste, covered it with concrete and told displaced residents of the remote atoll of the island. Pacific Enewetak that they could return home safely.
But the concrete dome 45 cm (18 inches) thick of Runit has now developed cracks.
And as the crater 115 meters wide has never been covered, it is feared that radioactive contaminants will enter the ocean through the porous coral rock of the island.
Nuclear Dome in the Pacific of the era of the Cold War
Concerns have intensified in the face of climate change. Rising seas, encroaching on the lowland nation, threatens to undermine the structural integrity of the dome.
Jack Ading, who represents the region in the Marshalls' parliament, describes the dome as "monstrosity".
"It is filled with radioactive contaminants, including plutonium 239, one of the most toxic substances known to man," he told AFP.
"The coffin spreads its poison into the environment, and to make matters worse, we are told not to worry about this leak, because the radioactivity outside the dome is at least as bad as the radioactivity inside. "
– "Narcotic" challenges –
The dome became a symbol of the mess left by the US nuclear test program in the Marshall Islands when 67 bombs exploded between 1947-1958 on the Enewetak and Bikini atolls.
Thousands of Marshall Islands residents, amidst nuclear tests in the region, fled or were forcibly evacuated
Many islanders have been forcibly evacuated from ancestral lands and resettled, including residents of Enewetak. Thousands of other islanders have been exposed to radioactive fallout and have suffered health problems.
The inhabitants of Enewetak were allowed to return home in 1980 and about 800 islanders now live in the southern part of the atoll, 20 kilometers from Runit.
After the withdrawal of the US military, the Marshall Islands government officially accepted a "comprehensive and definitive" settlement covering the impact of nuclear testing.
But it has long been complained that the compensation paid by Washington is insufficient and the United Nations has described "legacy of mistrust" towards the United States.
UN Secretary-General Guterres raised the issue earlier this month after meeting Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine in Fiji, where they discussed the issue. nuclear heritage and the prospect of radioactive leaks from Runit Dome.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine discussed the legacy left by nuclear detonations and the possibility of a radioactive leak
"The Pacific has been a victim in the past, as we all know (…), the consequences have been dramatic in terms of health and water poisoning in some areas," he said. -he declares.
Marshall's Foreign Affairs Minister John Silk said he enjoyed Guterres wearing the Runit Dome to the attention of the world with these comments.
"We are delighted that the Secretary-General has made these statements, because it seems so often that the international community is forgetting these inherited issues that continue to affect our people," he said.
– uncertain future –
Rhea Moss-Christian, who chairs the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission, said his country "needs the support of the international community to face the enormous health and environmental challenges in the world. The pacific".
The consequences of dome failure are unclear.
An inspection commissioned by the US government in 2013 suggested that the radioactive fallout in the sediments of the Enewetak lagoon was already so significant that a catastrophic failure would not necessarily result in an increase in the dose of radiation for the inhabitants.
Silk, noting that the US government had committed to constantly monitor the dome, said that an independent badessment of the status of the structure "would be useful".
But Ading said the situation was "a constant source of concern for the inhabitants of Enewetak".
"We pray that the Runit dome will not end up becoming our coffin," he said.
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