explosions were set off, and of such enormous intensity, that some mountains, when seen from above, seem to be covered by snow. This is not snow, explained Mukash Burkitbayev, but ground, broken and disturbed by explosions so powerful that they lifted the surface by two or three metres. One prominant feature in the landscape is Lake Chagan, a half a kilometre long hole known as the Atomic Lake, created by a blast in 1965, which amazingly, was stocked by locals with fish soon after it formed. Perhaps more amazing, is the fact that these fish have been declared by international experts in radiation, as safe to eat. In spite of the terrible pounding that the landscape received, most of the area, except for some notable hot spots, appears not to have been sterilized to the extent that many experts would have predicted. Considering the intentionally lethal nature of some weaponry tests, this is quite surprising. In one series of tests, low flying aircraft seeded the ground with nuclear waste to determine if high levels of radioactivity could act as a barrier against the advance of an invading enemy. How many of these tests were carried out? No one knows. If this seems bad, consider another series of tests in which radioactive waste from reprocessing plants, was hand-pumped into tanks containing sticks of gelignite, which were then set off to explosively disperse radioactivity. Locals were never told about these bizarre experiments, so they continued to bring in animals to graze. As Mukash Burkitbayev commented, these secret tests cast a deep shadow over Kazakhstan, but, as he added, it is all to easy to paint a dismal picture. What is important to know, he said, are the facts. When people become concerned about radioactivity, he said, they attribute every single abnormality and disease to this form of contamination, and in Kazakhstan it is no different. That many suffered and died as a result of exposure is not in doubt, but the important thing now is to distinguish the facts from the fiction. In Kazakhstan, visitors are often led into museums displaying grotesque deformities, yet these are often the sort of unfortunate disorders that afflict every society, and have no connection to radioactivity. The republic, independent since 1991, has great mineral wealth, uranium and oil are abundant, but to develop these resources, the country needs to escape from its past. Some of the richest
Between Europe and Asia, Kazakhan is a big country with a relatively small population of 16 million and the capital, Astana has 700,000 inhabitants.
The National Nuclear Centre for Radiological studies is at Kurchatov, formerly one of the secret cities of the Soviet Union. resources happen to be in areas blasted by testing, and to determine just how much permanent damage had been done, an international team of experts, including Luis Vintro from University College Dublin, and Nicholas Priest from Atomic Energy in Canada, worked with local scientists to conduct a six year long fact-finding study of the area. Apart from concerns about safety, one of the worries was that if highly radioactive material was left lying about, a black market would develop to supply buyers from countries that aspired to join the nuclear club. The results of the study came as a great surprise, for the long term damage, while serious, was much less of a problem than everyone had been led to expect.
Apart from being able to give reassurances that suspect areas are now within or below recognised safety levels, and team were able to identify where real problems still exist, and perhaps most valuable of all, was the setting up of a modern radiological laboratory, the National Nuclear Centre at Kurchalov, which can continue to provide advice and take action when and where necessary. During the height of activities, and for a period afterwards, hardly any attempt was made to assess the impact of radioactivity on inhabitants in towns or villages, and in remoter parts, where there were no doctors anyhow, deaths from radiation sickness would not have been noted on any official record. As happened after Chernobyl, locals just got on with their lifes, and for some, this meant freedom to go down into the deep shafts which had been made for numerous underground tests. In these tunnels there were rich pickings in cables and other materials, abandoned by the Soviets following tests. No one knows what became of the people who retrieved these materials, but the ground around tunnel entrances still remains far more radioactive than the surroundings. It can only be assumed that many of those who went back into these tunnels paid a very high price for any profit they might have made. An unknown quantity of material disappeared into the black market, and in a bid to halt these activities, entrances were sealed off. While areas within just a few metres of these hot spots were found to be safe, elevated levels of radioactivity can persist underground, and because of this, groundwater is still at risk from contamination. Drainage from these tunnels has been found to he high in tritium, and while some streams on the surface were found to be unsafe, the scientists who were conducting the surveying, were happy to go swimming in the Atomic Lake. The low level of radioactivity in areas considered to be at high risk, took everyone by surprise. Even around the craters, the measured levels expressed as milligrays, were typically in the region of 7, yet there are large areas of the world where the average is 100 or more milligrays a year. These findings came as a great relief to the authorities in Kazakhstan. Animals had continued to graze in these areas, and there was now no need to panic about contamination entering the food
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 47 Page 17