Protests over a nuclear dump as South Australia remembers Britain's bomb
Australia marked the 50th anniversary of the first British atomic test on the Australian mainland yesterday, and anti-nuclear campaigners used the occasion to fight plans for a low-level radioactive dump in the desert.
The British military detonated a nuclear bomb, code-named Totem 1, at Emu Field in the desert of South Australia in October 1953. The explosion 'lit the whole of the desert many times more brilliantly than the fiercest sunshine', according to a contemporary account.
It was followed by seven more tests at Maralinga, also in South Australia, from 1953 until 1957. While the atomic experiments helped Britain keep up with the cold war arms race with the former Soviet Union, they ended in tragedy for many of those involved.
Some of the estimated 8,000 servicemen and civilians who witnessed the devastating explosions called on the government to order an inquiry into how many people were killed by radiation sickness, and to offer compensation.
The co-ordinator of the South Australian Nuclear Veterans, Avon Hudson, told ABC radio: 'It was worse than any war zone. A very large proportion [of those present] suffered from radiation-induced illnesses.'
Desert-dwelling Aborigines who were in the area at the time say many of their people were also killed, with survivors continuing to suffer from poor health as a result of the atomic explosions.
