Latest news with #nucleartests
NHK
26-06-2025
- Health
- NHK
Addressing France's nuclear legacy
Over three decades, France conducted 193 nuclear tests in French Polynesia, leaving the islanders to live with the legacy. We meet one man who is still suffering from the lingering effects of radiation exposure.
BBC News
25-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Truth about UK nuclear veterans 'covered up', says Andy Burnham
The truth about tens of thousands British veterans who tested nuclear bombs has been "covered up for decades", the mayor of Greater Manchester has Burnham told BBC Newsnight the government must act while the remaining survivors are still the 1950s and 60s, servicemen witnessed dozens of atomic and hydrogen bomb tests and radioactive experiments in Australia and the South Pacific as part of the UK's nuclear programme. Veterans claim the tests caused severe lifelong health problems, and that the government continues to conceal their health Ministry of Defence has promised to "thoroughly examine" what information exists regarding veterans' medical tests. Watch - Newsnight: Britain's Nuclear Test Survivors Veterans, along with many others who were exposed, are preparing to launch civil legal action against the MoD to gain access to their own medical say their records are being illegally withheld, and harm was done to them and their families by the MoD's failure to keep, maintain and release allege they have suffered cancers of the liver, bone, bowel, skin and brain, as well as leukaemia, heart disease, stillbirths and generational birth defects as a result of exposure to the nuclear Morris, 87, worked as a laundry operator "washing contaminated clothing" on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean in the 1950s, and said he witnessed tests of three atomic bombs and one hydrogen bomb."If you've seen the film 'Oppenheimer', I sat 20 miles from a nuclear explosion that was a thousand times greater than that explosion," he told Newsnight."People have reckoned it was like sitting in the centre of the sun," he said. "With a pair of trousers on, a shirt and sunglasses."Mr Morris believes the bomb tests caused him to develop pernicious anaemia - an autoimmune condition - and cancer; and caused his first-born son Steven to tragically die in his cot due to birth defects at four months and his wife Betty were initially questioned on suspicion of Steven's murder, before being released without charge. It took John 50 years and a Freedom of Information Act request to produce the coroner's report which suggested their son's lungs may not have formed properly."The MoD had the audacity to turn round and say they looked after us to the best of their ability," he said."I'm sorry MoD, you've an awful lot to answer for." From 1952 and for the following 15 years, about 39,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen and scientists witnessed 45 atomic and hydrogen bombs, and hundreds of radioactive experiments, in the Australian Outback and Pacific well as the military personnel, the tests also allegedly put at risk their children and indigenous communities."This is a criminal cover-up on an industrial scale and only Parliament can overturn it," said Mr Bunham, who has campaigned on the issue told BBC Newsnight's special programme: "Why has this one got the firmest of lids on it? I think it is because it goes to the heart of the British state." Steve Purse, whose father David Purse took part in radioactive experiments in 1963, was born with a number of severe disabilities including a form of short stature, as well as curvature of the spine, a respiratory condition and hydrocephalus - a build-up of fluid in the Purse said his father would describe how contaminated sand would blow "everywhere", including into bedding, clothing and food, following the tests in Maralinga in South Australia."Along come I, a few years later, and in my mind it doesn't take a genius to make a link there and say there has to be something in it."My condition has never actually been diagnosed - doctors can't diagnose me so there's something genetically different there. There's something wrong." His son, aged four, has a condition which results in his teeth crumbling. "One dentist said he's seen this before in the children who were in the fallout clouds of Chernobyl," said Mr veteran, Brian Unthank, who was stationed on Christmas Island, said he lost all his teeth and his first wife suffered 13 miscarriages and their children have suffered various health Unthank said he was never issued any protective clothing during the two hydrogen bomb tests he witnessed. He has had treatment for 92 instances of skin cancers, including another treatment this week. In May 2021, the National Radiological Protection Board said it had carried out three large studies of nuclear test veterans and found no valid evidence to link participation in these tests to ill independent studies, commissioned by the MoD, said overall, test participants "had similar overall levels of aggregated mortality and cancer incidence" to the control said records indicate that "relatively few test participants received any measurable radiation dose as a result of the tests".Veteran's blood and urine samples taken from them as young men at the Cold War weapons trials have been reclassified as "scientific data" and placed out of reach at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, an MoD government said the database where those records are held – known as Merlin – "has not been declassified" and "contains information ranging from unclassified to Top Secret, with the majority being unclassified"."Plans are under way to release unclassified records at the National Archives with the appropriate privacy redactions, while classified records are being reviewed for potential publication with necessary security redactions," the MoD said in a statement. In December, Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs in December that "nothing is being withheld", and that officials would carry out a "detailed dig" amid concerns from surviving nuclear test May, then-defence minister Andrew Murrison said: "I would like to make clear that the Ministry of Defence, including its agencies and arm's length bodies, does not withhold any personal data or medical records from nuclear test veterans."Susie Boniface, investigative journalist, told Newsnight: "The veterans have always said to me the exact same thing, any time I've ever interviewed any of them, which is that the MoD policy is 'to delay, deny, until they die'."She said veterans are missing health records and she believed "the main departmental archives that hold medical records have at some point been sanitised by a government official of some sort who's come along, taken this stuff out".In a statement to Newsnight, the MoD said it was "deeply grateful to all those who participated in the UK nuclear testing programme and recognises their immense contribution to national security"."Ministers have directed teams across the Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment to thoroughly examine what information exists regarding medical testing of nuclear test veterans."We'll provide an update on this work in the have long called on the government to investigate, compensate and commemorate alleged victims from the UK and other countries have compensated nuclear test veterans. The US - which did far more tests than the UK - offered lump sum compensation of up to $75,000 (£55,000) to people who were on-site for nuclear weapons May, a group of veterans made a criminal complaint to the Metropolitan Police about the MoD, saying they were "devastated at the way veterans are being denied justice".They claim the department's actions amount to potential misconduct in public office with a cover-up of radiation experiments - a claim the MoD denies.A statement from the Met to Newsnight said: "A report was submitted to the Met Police on Wednesday, 7 May relating to non-recent allegations against a public body."The report is currently being assessed to determine the most appropriate course of action. We have not launched any investigation at this stage."
The Guardian
23-06-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Plutonium levels at nuclear test site in WA up to 4,500 times higher than rest of coast, study finds
Samples of marine sediment taken from the location of three 1950s British government nuclear bomb tests off the coast of Western Australia have revealed plutonium levels up to 4,500 times higher than the rest of the coastline. Sixty six samples were taken from the shallow waters at the Montebello Islands, and scientists are now working to understand how marine life may be being affected by the sediment. The British government performed three nuclear tests on the uninhabited, remote islands – about 80 kilometres off the WA coastline – between October 1952 and June 1956. The first bomb, known as Operation Hurricane, was detonated in a ship moored 600 metres off Trimouille Island. Two further bombs were detonated from towers on Trimouille and neighbouring Alpha Island. The area is now a marine park known for its turquoise waters, corals, dolphins and threatened turtles. Madison Williams-Hoffman, a PhD student at Edith Cowan University and lead author of the research, said the plutonium would have been part of the 'fallout' from the nuclear tests that would have fallen from the blast cloud and into the surrounding waters and land. Radiation from plutonium cannot travel through skin and is most dangerous when ingested or inhaled. The 66 samples were collected in 2020 by divers who took the top 10cm of sediment, with analysis done at the university in Perth and also by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Williams-Hoffman said little was known about the amounts of plutonium that remained in the marine environment and it was too early to speculate on any ongoing risks. Further research would look at those risks, she said. She said: 'This is a baseline that tells us what the levels are. Next we look at the risks to what's living there.' Williams-Hoffman said because plutonium was entirely human-made it could only be released by nuclear bombs, nuclear facilities or nuclear accidents. The contamination will persist for many thousands of years, she said. While the islands are not inhabited, they are visited by recreational fishing boats. The research, published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, showed concentrations of plutonium at the islands were four to 4,500 times higher than those found in sediment samples taken at two distant coastal sites more than 1,000 kilometres away on the Western Australian coastline. Williams-Hoffman said it was curious that levels of contamination at the Montebello Islands were similar to those at the Marshall Islands in the Micronesia region of the Pacific in the northern hemisphere, even though nuclear testing there by the US government was 'orders of magnitude' greater. 'This is a really important question for us as a country,' she said. 'We have unique ecosystems and environments and we need to understand how these materials behave in the environment once they are released.' A previous study of animals in the Montebello area found low levels of plutonium in all tested species, but levels in fish muscles were so low that anyone eating them 'would receive an increase in dose from the [plutonium] many orders of magnitude lower than that from the natural radionuclides in the same fish', the research said. Visitors to the marine park are warned to limit any visits on Trimouille and Alpha Island to an hour a day, and not to disturb soils. Tim Hunt, the marine program coordinator for the Pilbara region of the WA government's parks and wildlife service, said while it was useful to know that plutonium persisted in the marine environment, advice from nuclear experts was that the risk to humans was much lower in a marine environment than on land. 'Because this radiation will persist for generations, we are looking to build on information and adjust our management if needed. But the information we have is that our measures are sufficient to mitigate the radiation risk that's there, and will continue to be there.'
NHK
19-06-2025
- Politics
- NHK
Report: Paris should apologize for Polynesia nuclear tests
A French parliamentary report says the government should apologize for nuclear tests conducted in the South Pacific and amend a compensation law for people suffering health impacts. NHK World's Tamura Ginga explains the history and possible motivations.
Arab News
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
France urged to apologize for Polynesia nuclear tests
PARIS: Paris should apologize to French Polynesia for the fallout of nuclear tests there over three decades, which led to harmful radiation exposure, a French parliamentary report released on Tuesday said. France conducted 193 nuclear tests in French Polynesia from 1966, especially at the Pacific archipelago's Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, to help build up its atomic weapon arsenal. These included atmospheric and underground tests which had severe health impacts. Tens of thousands of people in the French overseas territory are estimated to have been exposed to harmful levels of radiation, leading to a significant public health crisis that has been largely ignored. The tests remain a source of deep resentment in French Polynesia, where they are seen as evidence of racist colonial attitudes that disregarded the lives of islanders. 'The inquiry has strengthened the committee's conviction that a request for forgiveness from France to French Polynesia is necessary,' the report said. 'This request is not merely a symbol, nor a request for repentance. It must be a... fundamental step in the process of reconciliation between French Polynesia and the State,' the authors said. The report said the apology must be added to a 2004 law on French Polynesia's semi-autonomous status. Residents in the south Pacific Ocean islands are hoping for compensation for radiation victims. The investigative website Disclose, citing declassified French military documents on the nearly 200 tests, reported in March that the impact from the fallout was far more extensive than authorities let on. Only a few dozen civilians have been compensated for radiation exposure since the tests ended in 1996, Disclose said.
