Aerial view of the Runit Dome, shortly after its construction
A huge hole was left in a small island in the Pacific Ocean when the US military carried out an 18-kiloton nuclear explosion in 1958, known as the “Cactus” test. The radioactive tomb is now leaking.
In 1958, a nuclear explosion occurred on Runit Island in the Marshall Islands. The military then filled the hole with contaminated soil and debris, creating a “tomb” of nuclear waste today known as the Runit Dome.
Experts now fear that cracks in the radioactive landfill’s concrete cover indicate how vulnerable the site is to rising sea levels encroaching on the narrow island’s shores.
As detailed by , the 115-meter-wide dome, built between 1977 and 1980 as part of military cleanup efforts, sits atop more than 120,000 tons of material that was contaminated by U.S. nuclear testing across Enewetak Atoll, including lethal amounts of plutonium.
The dome was conceived as a temporary solution to contain material left behind by nuclear tests, some of which exceeded the magnitude of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by more than 1,000 times.
However, since its construction, groundwater penetrated the craterwhich has no coating, under which there is a layer of porous coralline sediment.
Until now, this is the main source of leaksbut there are concerns that layers of the dome meant to remain above sea level will not remain above water for much longer.
Most of Runit Island is located just 2 meters above sea level. Seen from above, it is easy to imagine the impact that just 1 meter of additional water could have on the atoll and the deteriorated nuclear tomb of Runit Island. That’s the amount of sea level rise climate scientists predict for the Marshall Islands by 2100.
Ivana Nikolic-Hughesa chemist at Columbia University, collected soil samples on the island in 2018, in which found elevated levels of radiation and significant amounts of five radionuclides in soil samples from the island, outside the dome.
This could be evidence that the nuclear tomb is leaking – although it could also be a result of the disorganized nature of the cleanup efforts, which also resulted in much of the waste being dumped into the lagoon.
In any case, the presence of plutonium-239a component of nuclear weapons that remains dangerous for more than 24,000 yearsjustifies concerns about its vulnerability to rising sea levels and climate change.
“Taking into account that sea levels are rising and that there are signs that storms are intensifying, we fear that the dome integrity may be at risk,” Nikolic-Hughes told , this week.
“Runit is about 20 miles from where people live and they use the lagoon, so consequences are potentially devastating”, he warned.
Researchers urge the US to take responsibility for properly cleaning up nuclear waste on the islands as part of ensuring a safe future for Marshall Islands residents.
