• jqubed@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    A gaping hole was left on a small island in the Pacific Ocean when the United States military released an 18-kiloton nuclear blast in 1958, known as the ‘Cactus’ test.

    After the blast took place on the Marshall Island’s Runit Island, the military filled it in with contaminated soil and debris, creating a ‘tomb’ of nuclear waste known now as the Runit Dome.

    The 115-meter (377 feet)-wide dome, built between 1977 and 1980 as part of military cleanup efforts, rests above more than 120,000 tons of material that were contaminated by US nuclear testing across Enewetak Atoll, including lethal quantities of plutonium.

    The dome was intended as a temporary solution to contain material left behind by the nuclear tests, some of which exceeded the magnitude of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1,000 times over.

    Sounds like it’s time for a more long-term response