The most atomic bombing place on the planet: 10,000 years of danger!

The amount of radioactive waste here takes 10,000 years to decompose completely.

Seven decades ago, with the first test of nuclear weapons in history, the United States brought humanity into the era of extremely fierce atomic.

On July 16, 1945, world opinion was shocked when he learned that the United States tested humanity's first atomic bomb under the name "Trinity" (The Gadget name) at the Alamogordo weapons test site in New Mexico. (America).

With the explosive equivalent of 18,000 tons of TNT, the "Trinity" bomb formed a giant mushroom cloud over 10,000 meters high; the explosion also cleared a large hole in the test area, 3m deep and 340m wide; people 160km away from the explosion site can still hear the shocking sound as well as feel its deadly shockwave.

"Trinity" was the result of the "Manhattan Project" that cost billions of dollars (starting in 1942, helped by the United States and Canada and Canada) to create the most terrible weapon in the calendar. Human history.

The Gadget, alias "Trinity" - The first atomic bomb in human history.Photo taken in 1945. (Source: Rare Historical Photos)

"Overcoming victory" plus the "look" of opponents of the Soviet Union, the US kept secretly creating and testing this kind of destructive bomb. Evidence that in just 17 short years, the US conducted 331 tests of aerial atomic bombs.

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967), American theoretical physicist, head of "Manhattan Project" , considered "the father of American nuclear weapons" , must later utter bitterly that: "I have no different than Death, the one who disseminates destruction to this beautiful world!"

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967) - "Father of American nuclear weapons".

Back to the story of American atomic bomb production. In order to know whether the bomb was built successfully, the US must naturally conduct the test. This inevitably leads to the demand for large testing grounds, with the following criteria: Secret, far away from population and large.

fit within the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific Ocean is one of the test sites that meet those American criteria.

However, the United States still wants more "near-home" testing sites and to avoid the eyes of rivals in the Cold War, but does not stir up world opinion but also saves money. charge. That's when the US Nevada Test Zone was born.

US Nevada test area.

From the "land yard" of 3,500 km ²

On January 11, 1951, the Nevada Test Area (NTS) was established with the aim of becoming a " testing ground " for nuclear weapons. This is a 3,500 square kilometer desert land, owned by the US Department of Energy. NTS is about 105km from Baralaut town of Las Vegas.

Shortly after its founding for more than 2 weeks, on January 27, 1951, the US "opened" a test of the first atomic bomb at NTS, equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT.

The NTS includes 30 trial areas with a range from 1 to 30, with 1,100 buildings, with 640km of asphalt roads and 480km of dirt roads, 10 helicopter floors and 2 runways.

Since this milestone comes after the end of the Cold War, the United States has made nearly 1,000 nuclear tests here. That's why, the Nevada Test Zone became "the most bombed place on Earth".

The US government is very strict in securing NTS in public and public opinion. However, after a short video broadcast on television in 1952, the Americans became even more curious and wanted to witness firsthand the characteristic mushroom-shaped clouds after the moment the atomic bomb exploded.

Of course, all illegal intrusions are captured. On February 5, 1987, more than 400 people were captured by soldiers while deliberately breaking into the NTS area, including many American "rolling" figures.

When you can't see it with your own eyes, curious people find another way. And Las Vegas, 105 kilometers away, became a place that couldn't be more perfect to see mushroom clouds on high-rise buildings.

Looking at the remote atomic bombs seems to "like the eyes - ears" , but for the people living near this giant test site, radiation is the worst "nightmare" in their lives.

Giant mushroom cloud every time you try an atomic bomb.

To "dump" contains huge radioactive waste

The corollary of the NTS test site is the 3,500-square-kilometer area that has now become a barren wasteland and radioactive (both land and space on it) into the heaviest row on the planet.

From the "most atomic bombing area on the planet" , the NTS now has the nickname " huge radioactive waste dump" , with a level of decomposition of 10,000 years!

In order to treat this persistent radioactive waste, it was forced to create a Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Reserve and Waste Disposal Pilot Plant to isolate people from deadly waste. this.

In a 1955 book on atomic experimental effects at NTS, the US Atomic Energy Commission reassured nearby residents that radiation levels were "only slightly more than normal radiation you spread." experience day after day wherever you can live ".

However, residents in nearby Utah towns constantly complain about radioactive dust that follows the wind from Neveda to the area they live in.

Decades after the campaign called Downwinders , Congress passed the 1990 Radiation Exposure Act to pay some people claiming to have been affected by fallout from nuclear tests at NTS. . So far, about $ 2 billion has been paid to more than 32,000 claimants.

Image of Nevada Test Zone from aerial view.(Source: Futurism).

For many Americans, NTS is an area of ​​unprecedented importance in the country's history for their own national security - this is the battlefield that the US has fought and won in the Cold War. against the Soviet Union.

Nuclear devices tested here forever change humanity, including the largest modern nuclear weapons, thousands of times stronger than the bombs that the US threw at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The danger from the atomic bomb and its radioactive waste from NTS is clearly still a challenge for the government and its people. However, for those directly involved in the NTS, they found it to be a force majeure task in the years of the last century, restraining the enormous threat from the Soviet Union.

NTS - Nuclear weapons test, the most heavily atomic bombed area in the Earth, a massive radioactive waste dump is a "legacy" that has always been controversial forever!