How the US betrayed the Marshall Islands with its atomic testing

Between 1946 and 1958, the US detonated 67 nuclear bombs on, in and above the Pacific island chain

But island leaders say America has repeatedly failed to take ownership of the environmental catastrophe it left behind

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Runit Dome caps a crater left by one of the 43 nuclear tests carried out on Runit Island in Enewetak, the Marshall Islands. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:15pm, 15 Nov 2019Updated: 3:46am, 16 Nov 2019

Thousands of kilometres west of Los Angeles and 800 kilometres (500 miles) north of the equator, on a far-flung spit of white coral sand in the central Pacific Ocean, a massive, ageing and weathered concrete dome bobs up and down with the tide.

Runit Dome, in the Marshall Islands, holds more than 3.1 million cubic feet – or 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools – of US-produced radioactive soil and debris, including lethal amounts of plutonium. Nowhere else has the United States saddled another country with so much of its nuclear waste, a product of its cold war atomic testing programme.

Between 1946 and 1958, the US detonated 67 nuclear bombs on, in and above the Marshall Islands – vaporising whole islands, carving craters into its shallow lagoons and exiling hundreds of people from their homes.

US authorities later cleaned up contaminated soil on Enewetak Atoll, where the bulk of nuclear weapons tests were carried out, depositing the most lethal debris and soil into the dome.

Now the concrete coffin, which locals call “the Tomb”, is at risk of collapsing from rising seas and other effects of climate change. Tides are creeping up its sides, advancing higher every year as distant glaciers melt and ocean waters rise.

Officials in the Marshall Islands have lobbied the US government for help, but American officials have declined, saying the dome is on Marshallese land and therefore the responsibility of the Marshallese government.

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