Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Exploding A-bombs in the Bikini Tests on remote Pacific islands, marvelling at the mushroom clouds produced, then two decades later realising that it would probably be wise to gather all the nuclear detritus from these sunshine shenanigans and concrete over it all, before sidling away, whistling nonchalantly.
So it went in the 1950s and then the 1970s.
Now, the giant concrete dome – the Cactus Dome – put in place and filled with nuclear waste is leaking radiation. Built in the late 1970s on one of those remote Pacific islands which the US military gleefully contaminated in the 1950s, it is succumbing to weathering and the effects of the sea. One might say, unsurprisingly.
Scientists are now more than mildly concerned that a typhoon or storm surge could crack the dome wide open, unleashing the decaying atomic delights therein. Super.
Click on the graphic for an expanded view.
Engineering & Technology magazine 