Existing comment:
Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site: 1947-1991
Test Site Area: 18,500 sq km or 7,142.88 sq miles
Foundation date: August 21, 1947
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted the explosion of its first atomic bomb at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in Eastern Kazahkstan. The blast was equal to 22,000 tons of TNT. During the next forty years, 456 nuclear and thermonuclear explosions were conducted at the test site with a cumulative power output equal to 2,500 bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
Air Tests -- 86
Surface Tests -- 30
Underground Tets -- 340
The zone of environmental contamination around the former Semipalatinsk test site spread over more than 300,000 square kilometers, comparable to the territories of Germany or Italy and equal to more than 10 percent of Kazahkstan's territory.
The estimated 30,000 soldiers, who served on the site during the years of testing, were not aware of the dangerous levels of radiation. Constrained with a confidentiality agreement, they could not tell anyone about exposure and where they had served.
The local population suffered as well. In 1957, a secret medical institution called Brucellosis Dispensary Number 4 was established in Semipalatinsk, where thirty-five scientists studied, but did not treat, 20,000 people living in heavily contaminated settlements. Other hospitals in the country misdiagnosed victims of the radioactive exposure, since the Soviet system forbade doctors to mention radiation in their official diagnosis.
The nuclear testing damaged the lives of 1.4 million people in Kazahkstan. Diseases found in the third generation at unusually high rates include encephalitis, schizophrenia, different kinds of cancer, leukemia, and heart disease. The birth defects, such as cleft pallets, "rabbit nose," scarcity of bones in the arms and legs, and skin problems are common.
On August 29, 1991, Nursultan Nazarbaev, then the President of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, signed a Decree on Shutting Down the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site.
The test site in now used for scientific studies. The international community, including governmental agencies, international and non-governmental organizations, assists in implementing the Semipalatinsk Relief and Rehabilitation Program. |