Antinuclear

In brief: how Maralinga nuclear bomb caused illness and environmental destruction

Secret Outback nuclear testing site handed back to traditional land owners 50 years after British did HUNDREDS of nuclear tests causing fatal radiation poisoning

• The British nuclear testing site in outback Australia has been returned to its Aboriginal owners
• Seven atomic bombs were detonated on ‘Section 400’ in the 1950s
• There were also about 600 smaller nuclear tests on the area 
• The land traditionally belonged to the Maralinga-Tjarutja community
• Britain’s nuclear tests in Australia caused widespread radiation poisoning
• Aborigines and Australian and UK soldiers suffered disease and death
• Radioactive fallout in remote Australia was three time greater than predicted
• Australia spent $100 million cleaning up the traditional lands
• The government held on to the 1782sq km testing range until this week

By CANDACE SUTTON FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AAP, 6 November 2014……………………Hundreds of nuclear trials were carried out. Britain dropped twelve nuclear bombs at Maralinga, and then went on to test nuclear warheads.

Although many Aboriginal people were forcibly removed from their land, more than a thousand were directly affected.

The widespread radioactive fallout of the bombs across the environment, which the local Aboriginal people called ‘puyu’ or ‘black mist’, caused disease and death……..http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2822906/Secret-nuclear-testing-site-Australian-outback-known-Section-400-finally-handed-Aboriginal-traditional-land-owners-50-years-British-dropped-atomic-bombs-causing-radiation-poisoning-death.html

November 8, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, history, South Australia, weapons and war