Radioactive Winds; The Invisible Graveyard of 5 Nuclear Powers

TEHRAN (Defapress) - The nuclear arms race era began with the explosion of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and the massacre of over 110,000 people. This event marked the end of World War II and plunged the world into the abyss of nuclear competition during the Cold War.

Between 1945 and 1966, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China conducted over 2000 nuclear tests to build more powerful nuclear weapons. Although these tests were conducted in colonies and remote areas, they undermined global security and destroyed the lives of millions. People living in the path of winds carrying radioactive materials became victims of the deadly consequences of these tests.

Lethal Tests in Cursed Locations

Nuclear powers generally conducted their tests in so-called "remote" or "low-population" areas. However, these choices were rooted more than anything in security considerations and were carried out with complete disregard for the rights of local people. For example, the US often conducted its tests in Nevada and the Marshall Islands, the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan and the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the UK in Australia and Christmas Island, France in Algeria and Polynesia, and China in the Lop Nor desert in Xinjiang.

The aforementioned countries justified nuclear tests with the necessity of maintaining national security and turned a blind eye to their destructive effects. Nuclear tests between 1951 and 1962 contaminated areas such as Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho with radioactive materials.

Mary Dickson, who grew up in Salt Lake City, was one of millions of children who, unaware of the ongoing tests during the Cold War, were exposed to radioactive radiation. Mary developed thyroid cancer, her older sister died of lupus at age 40, and her younger sister is now fighting advanced colon cancer. She listed 54 of her childhood neighbors who suffer from cancer, autoimmune diseases, birth defects, or miscarriages.

The Soviet Union, between 1949 and 1989, tested more than 450 nuclear bombs at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, while the indigenous people were completely unaware. Most natives of this region died before the age of 50, and subsequent generations also grapple with chronic illnesses.

The Cold War Continues...

Determining the impact of nuclear tests on people's health requires complex testing, but the medical community agrees that radiation is carcinogenic. Accordingly, the US Environmental Protection Agency stated: "Radiation increases the risk of cancer, and this risk will increase proportionally with increasing radiation."

The US National Cancer Institute estimated in 1997 that the tests conducted in Nevada were responsible for 212,000 cases of thyroid cancer. Mary Dickson, stating that she is fighting various traumas, says: "Every lump or pain revives the fear of cancer returning in us." For these victims, it is as if the Cold War continues.

Studies conducted at the nuclear test site in Kazakhstan show that during the period of intense testing (1949-1962), the mortality rate from cancer and infant mortality were higher than in other areas.

According to another study by the US National Cancer Institute in the Marshall Islands, 3.4% of lifetime cancers among people who lived there between 1948 and 1970 were due to exposure to nuclear radiation. This figure increased to 69% for people living on the Rongelap and Ailinginae atolls after the 1954 Castle Bravo test. This test, with a power equivalent to 7000 Hiroshima bombs, caused a full-scale disaster.

The French government did not accept the destructive effects of its nuclear tests on the natives of Algeria and Polynesia until 2010. The United Kingdom, which conducted its tests in Australia and Christmas Island, first and foremost victimized its own soldiers. British veterans are still competing to receive compensation from the government.

Nuclear tests, in addition to taking the lives of millions of innocent people, also transformed nature. The US, by conducting 67 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, obliterated 5 islands. The Marshall Islands, after more than half a century, are still uninhabitable. To cover up the disaster in the Marshall Islands, the US destroyed vegetation with bulldozers and altered its ecosystem. A large portion of the nuclear waste was buried in a concrete-covered valley now known as the Runit Dome.

In Kazakhstan, the Semipalatinsk site is still contaminated and has contaminated subsequent generations with nuclear radiation. Similar effects are seen in China's Lop Desert. These consequences prove that nuclear tests have caused lasting damage to the ecosystem that will continue for centuries.

Damage That Cannot Be Compensated with Money

Nuclear tests led to the forced displacement of people, the destruction of cultures, and the emergence of psychological trauma. In the Marshall Islands, the US forced people into forced migration, so that today thousands fight for their culture in states like Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, far from their homeland.

Under the 1990 "Radiation Exposure Compensation Act," the US has paid more than $1.3 billion to over 27,000 victims of radioactive winds. Residents of the Marshall Islands have also received some compensation, but consider it insufficient. Kazakhstan has included 1.2 million people in its compensation program. France paid only half the necessary compensation to victims in 2021. Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the debt to Polynesia but was not willing to apologize.

Eighty years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki disaster, the legacy of nuclear tests remains like a deep wound on the body of humanity and the environment. The nuclear powers' money-throwing cannot compensate for their criminal actions or heal the deep human and environmental wounds. This dire and shameful situation testifies to the inefficiency and crisis of legitimacy of the order emerging from World War II. The current structure lacks the competence and merit to govern the world, and the new generation must, with vigilance and responsibility, seek to build a just and rational order for managing the planet Earth.