Shortly after the secret Manhattan Project detonated the first prototype atomic bomb in July 1945, an event now revived by the lauded film “Oppenheimer,” Sherman tanks drove into the blast site.
In these thick metal military vehicles, like the ones that were being used at the same time in Europe during World War II, people in protective suits went to check what had happened on the ground and take samples.
This happened at a point in the New Mexico desert called Day of the Deadin which the prototype bomb, called The Gadgethad caused one of the largest explosions in human history.
The success led to the fact that days later, in August, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki thus ending World War II.
The most conservative calculations estimate that by December 1945 some 110,000 people had died in both cities.
At the helm of the Manhattan Project were robert oppenheimer -baptized later as the ?father? of the atomic bomb and whose story reached the cinema last weekend – and other researchers who had found the key to how to combine radioactive elements to generate a devastating explosion.
They tested The Gadget at that point in New Mexico because it was an uninhabited desert for miles around.
or so they thoughtwell actually yes there was presence of some ranchers -and their cattle- about 20 km away. Further on, within a radius of about 80 km, thousands of people lived in small towns, such as those in the basin of tularosa.
Local residents were never alerted that at 05:30 am on July 16, 1945, The Gadget was scheduled to detonate. And it was so powerful that there were those who perceived the lights kilometers away in the cities of Albuquerque and El Paso.
?They have told me how they were asleep and were knocked out of bed by the explosion. And that they saw a light like they had never seen before, because the test actually produced more light and more heat than the Sun?, explained Tina Cordova, a community leader in the region, to the US public network PBS in 2021.
Did people think it was the end of the world?he added.
After the test, the Alamogordo Air Force Base issued a press release reporting: ?It exploded an ammunition loader located in a remote location that contained a considerable amount of high explosives and pyrotechnicsbut there was no loss of life or personnel [de la base]?.
“The weather conditions that affect the content of the gas projectiles detonated by the explosion may make it convenient for the Army to temporarily evacuate some civilians from their homes,” the note continued, according to the newspaper. The Albuquerque Tribune who reviewed it then.
The statement offered no explanation or warning of the dangerous radiation that was generated at the site of the explosion.
“Immediately after the test, the resulting cloud moved across and past the local landscape, disseminating many different radioisotopes. These included fission products such as strontium, technicium, and cesium; and activation products produced by the irradiation of materials in the device, the test tower and the surroundings”, explains the doctor to BBC Mundo William Kinsellaa case investigator from the University of North Carolina.
The brief statement outlined the possibility of an evacuation -which was never done- due to a risk that would be proven around the world a long time later: that the cloud of gases generated by nuclear tests are highly polluting.
Especially for those who later would be called the ?downwinders?, -People living in various US states upwind of the nuclear test range in New Mexico.
downwind
The Manhattan Project chose that place in the New Mexico desert to carry out the so-called Trinity test because it was an uninhabited point in the 1940s and with a predictable weather pattern, which would allow them to have greater control of the explosion and its effects.
However, the detonation it was stronger than expected, with a cloud of particles between 15,000 and 21,000 meters high. The presence of the emissions was detected thousands of kilometers away, in 46 US states, as well as in southern Canada and northern Mexico, according to a new study published this month.
a zone of 400 km long by 320 km wide to the northeast from the place of the explosion was the most affected. The highest concentration of radioactive fallout occurred in Chupadera Mesa, 48 km from the test site.
“There are many communities downwinders different in the world, or maybe a community downwinder very large with many sub-communities. Are those affected by trinity testthose affected by the post tests in the US and US Pacific territories, and those affected by the tests carried out by other nations with nuclear weapons,” Kinsella explains.
This became clear years later, because nothing was known immediately: The US government had reported that it was a detonation of “high-powered explosives and fireworks.”
But the experts did know what had happened in the New Mexico desert and the magnitude of a test like the one they had carried out. Physicist Emilio Segré, who participated in the Manhattan Project, was quoted in a report by The Washington Post saying: ?I think for a moment I thought that the explosion could set the atmosphere on fire and thus end the earth, although I knew that this was not possible.?
Problems
Tina Cordova, who heads the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, has collected testimonials from people who suffered illnesses after the Trinity test, which is consistent with reports of other people affected by radiation at test sites around the world.
In the case of New Mexico, he explains that at that time the people who lived there in various settlements did not have television or radio, so they did not find out what had really happened.
In a region where in 1945 there were no sources of drinking waterthe inhabitants captured it from the rain or the subsoil and they accumulated it in cisterns into which contaminated dust from the explosion could have fallen. The breeding animals to feed on those who depended too They were exposed to radiation.
?People’s lives were changed forever, the environment and their lives were invaded by the radioactive fallout produced by the Trinity test,? Cordova said.
?We actually had the most radiation exposure as a result of the test and the fact that we lived a very organic life, completely dependent on the land for our well-being.?
After the nuclear test, and over the months and years, the local inhabitants began to get sick. The cases arose here and there, and it was not until a long time later that they suspected that they were related to what happened in July 1945.
?Ten years later there were people who began to die of cancer. People who had never heard the word cancer in their communities. I am the fourth generation in the family to suffer from cancer, Cordova said.
A neighbor told Córdova about the case of her aunt in Tularosa, who had visited the detonation site pregnant and when she gave birth her baby was born without eyes.
?There was such a lack of health care that they didn’t even close the site to visitors. By the 50s there were no restrictions on the place, which was radioactive. If you go today, the site is surrounded by warning signage. Imagine what it was like in the months and years after the test? the woman said.
The test site was visited by the surrounding inhabitants. People had picnics out there, fearing nothing. Others found trinitite, a rock byproduct of the explosion that was a striking but dangerous gem.
?Neighbors used steel to build things like children’s swings. Remains of what looked like a parachute were used to make curtains,? Cordova explained to PBS.
The babies began to come down with problems that they thought at the time was dysentery, but it later became clear that it was not a bacterial condition. One hundred out of 100 out of 1,000 babies died at the most acute moment of the problem, according to Córdova.
One notable case was that of 12 girls who went camping near a river in Ruidoso, New Mexico. After the test, they saw what seemed like an unbelievable fact: “We all thought ‘Oh my gosh, it’s july and it’s snowing? But it was very hot?, Barbara Kent, 83, told the daily Santa Fe New Mexican.
?We put it in our hands and rubbed it on our faces (…) We were all having a great time in that river, trying to catch what we thought was snow?, she stated in the interview in 2015.
of those girls, only two lived more than 40 years, because others died of cancer and other diseases. Kent overcame skin cancer.
Most of the plutonium in the device was not consumed in the chain reaction and therefore “was released into the environment. This is of particular concern due to its long half-life and high toxicity,” Kinsella notes.
“Only about 15% of the plutonium was consumed in the explosion, and most of the remaining plutonium was deposited near the blast site, while fission products and activation products traveled farther.”
“Once deposited in the ground, these radiological hazards spread further through the movement of surface and groundwater and the entry into agricultural products as and the food chain (with milk as an important example). Similar effects resulted from the many tests on the ground that followed Trinity”, explains the researcher.
The United States conducted nearly 200 nuclear weapons tests from 1945 to 1962.
The consequences on the health of populations around nuclear test sites have been proven, although it is difficult to determine who has been affected directly or indirectly, as it is a process that develops over decades, and ensuring that the sole cause was the nuclear test.
?The total number of cancer deaths in the world as a result of atmospheric nuclear test explosions has been estimated between 2 million and 2.4 millionalthough these studies used estimates of radiation risk that are now outdated and probably underestimated the risk?, explain in an article Tilman Ruff, a professor at the University of Melbourne, and his colleague Dimity Hawkins, from Swinburneen University of Technology, both in Australia (a country near the Pacific tests).
?As confirmed in a large study of nuclear industry workers in France, the UK and the US, it is likely that the number of radiation-related deaths due to other diseases, such as heart attacks and strokesis also similar?, they point out in their analysis published in The Conversation.
The fight for visibility
In the ?downwinders? from new mexico there was never a study by the authorities to determine the number of people affectedwhich despite the low population at that time was able to grow exponentially over decades of human presence in contaminated places.
The US government and Congress began to address cases at the end of the 20th century, when it was determined that there were people affected by the nuclear program. But recognized only the ?downwinders? from the neighboring state of Nevada, such as workers in the uranium industry, to be beneficiaries of a compensation program of more than US$2,500 million.
Those in New Mexico have not been considered affected so far.
“In all of these communities, there is a historical pattern of official secrecy, denial, and rhetorical downplaying of the effects of nuclear weapons production and testing. There have been a few recognition and compensation cases, but these seem very limited compared to the extent of the damages inflicted,” Kinsella says.
This despite the fact that reports such as one from the Department of Energy (2022) acknowledge that there are 107 sites to be cleaned in that state. Inspectors at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the test was planned, detected last year berylliuma toxic material that can cause cancer and lung disease.
Cordova has been a leader in the struggle of the downwinders of New Mexico for decades to be recognized as victims of the Trinity test. But there are also reports of towns of the Navajo nation They talk about similar problems.
The community leader considers it suspicious that “people of color” -Hispanics and Native Americans- are excluded from the federal compensation program.
The congressmen and authorities, he assures, have not yet offered an alternative: “The justification they have given me can be summarized in one: because it would cost a lot. And that is adding insult to the sacrifice and suffering that the people of New Mexico have gone through?
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC News World. Download the latest version of our app and activate them so you don’t miss out on our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel?
See original article on BBC