Soviet-era Kazak Nuke Test Site Destroyed Saturday, July 29, 2000

KURCHATOV, Kazakhstan  U.S. and Kazakh officials completed destruction on Saturday of what was once the world's largest atomic test ground. Over 500 nuclear explosions were carried out at the Semipalatinsk complex in northeastern Kazakhstan during the Cold War between 1949 and 1989.

But more than a decade later, Kazakhs living around Semipalatinsk say they are still living with the consequences of the tests, citing illnesses and contamination of the land.

"On 29 July we closed the last nuclear weapons test tunnel at Semipalatinsk, using 100 tons of chemical explosives," a U.S. Pentagon official told Reuters.

The blast, which sent a cloud of dust over the steppe and made the earth shake, was carried out by the Defense Department and the Kazakh National Nuclear Centre under a scheme funded by the Defense Department's Threat Reduction Agency.

The program allotted $172 million in the early 1990s to support disarmament in Kazakhstan, which after the collapse of the Soviet Union inherited the world's fourth largest nuclear weapons arsenal but became nuclear-free in 1995.

Although the blast brought the curtain down on the test site, people living around Semipalatinsk are still being affected by the nuclear bomb test program.

Many babies born in the region have congenital deformities, while cancer and muscular dystrophy are common.

The United Nations said in a report on Semipalatinsk that agriculture and land systems had been contaminated by radioactive elements and called for aid to clean up the damage.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/072900/kazak_atomic.sml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 29, 2000