Montebello Islands
| Montebello Islands | ||
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| Waters | Indian Ocean | |
| Geographical location | 20 ° 28 ′ S , 115 ° 31 ′ E | |
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| Number of islands | 174 | |
| Main island | Hermite Island | |
| Total land area | 22 km² | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
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The Montebello Islands (also: Monte Bello Islands ; English Montebello Islands ; it. Monte bello means beautiful mountain ) are a group of islands in the Indian Ocean off the northwest coast of Australia . They are best known for the fact that Great Britain carried out its first nuclear tests here in 1952 .
location
The Montebello Islands belong to the Karratha City (therein to the Roebourne / Pastoral Ward ) in the Pilbara region , which is located in the north of the Australian state of Western Australia . They form the westernmost land mass of Karratha City. The islands are off the Australian coast about 80 km northwest. South of the Montebello Islands is the Lowendal Archipelago at a distance of 7.4 km and the much larger Barrow Island 10 kilometers further south , and the Dampier Islands 88 kilometers to the east . The Montebello Islands consist of a total of 174 islands of very different sizes from less than 100 square meters to over 10 km².
The two largest islands are Hermite Island (10.22 km²), named after the French admiral Jean l'Hermite, and Trimouille Island (5.22 km²), named after a French noble family. These two islands together take up around 70 percent of the total area of 22 km² of the archipelago. The next largest islands are Alpha Island, North West Island (the northernmost island), Campbell Island, Primrose Island, Crocus Island, Delta Island and Ah Chong Island.
The island landscape is very different with winding coastlines, lagoons, canals, bays under the tidal range, reefs and limestone plateaus on the open ocean.
The Montebello Islands are uninhabited.
Islands and archipelagos
At least 92 individual islands and 10 archipelagos within the Montebello Islands have names. These are listed in the table below with their coordinates. The areas of the larger islands are given. Archipelagos are marked in green in the table. The main island Hermit Island is marked in light red.
Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap
history
Europeans came to the islands for the first time on 25. May 1622 in contact when the ship Tryall the British East India Company 16 km northwest of the islands in a coral reef ran aground; the crew of 42 men was able to escape to the islands with a dinghy. This place bears the name Tryal Rocks to this day. The ship Wild Wave sank in 1872 and the Marietta in 1905. There are other shipwrecks in the sea around the islands, including ships of the pearl seekers. Since 1902, the area around the islands has been used economically as part of pearl fishing .
Nuclear tests
After the Second World War, Great Britain, as the third nuclear power after the USA and the Soviet Union, was faced with the question of a test site for its nuclear weapons. In addition to the Great Victoria Desert near Maralinga in Central Australia, in which seven nuclear weapons tests were carried out from October 15, 1953 to 1963 and two more nuclear weapons tests on the so-called emu field, the Montebello Islands were considered suitable.
- The first test of an atomic bomb was called Operation Hurricane and was carried out on the islands on October 3, 1952 at 8:00 a.m. local time. There was a nuclear weapon with plutonium , the 350 meters off the coast of Trimouille Iceland aboard the HMS Plym was detonated and an explosive yield of 25 kilotons of TNT had, making them comparable with the bomb in about Fat Man was the 1945 had been detonated over Nagasaki .
- The second test was carried out in 1956 . It was code-named "G2"; At 98 kilotons, it was the most powerful atomic bomb that has ever exploded in Australia. Cities in Queensland such as Mount Isa , Julia Creek , Longreach and Rockhampton have been contaminated by the fallout from this test.
The nuclear fallout even reached Melbourne ; large parts of the affected regions (as with all surface nuclear weapons tests ) are still heavily contaminated to this day. With 3.37 million inhabitants (2006), Melbourne is the second largest city on the Australian continent after Sydney . When massive protests against the fallout were loud, the British Ministry of Defense turned to the test site in the Nevada desert (USA). In 1985 the McClelland Royal Commission dealt with the consequences of British nuclear tests.
Flora and fauna
In the sea area of the islands, the holding green turtle , hawksbill turtle , the endemic flatback sea turtle and occasionally loggerhead turtle on. Minke whale , toothed whale , Bryde's whale , humpback whale , sperm whale , short-finned pilot whale , killer whale , killer whale , common dolphin , blue and white dolphin , bottlenose dolphin and dugong swim in the sea area .
Later, despite the radioactive contamination, the islands were declared a marine nature reserve, the Montebello Islands Marine Park and Barrow Island Marine Management Area - apparently a fig leaf for the fact that the archipelago could no longer be populated for centuries.
The Alpha Island and Trimouille Islands , as well as the main coastline, can only be entered for one hour a day due to radioactivity and no objects may be picked up.
swell
- ↑ a b c d Montebello Islands Marine Park - Department of Environment and Conservation ( Memento of April 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ PNAS Islands Database (excluding Bluebell Island, which is also one of the larger islands)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m ALL WA ISLANDS> 20 HA. Department of the Environment and Energy, Australian Government, accessed August 9, 2017 .
- ^ Roger Cross (2001). Fallout , Wakefield Press, p. 179.
- ↑ Australian Bureau of Statistics: 2006 Census QuickStats: Melbourne (Urban Center / Locality)
Web links
- Montebello Islands MP (pdf) - Brochure (English)
- Australian Government Department of the Environment: ALL WA ISLANDS> 20 HA , here Bluebell Island 65 hectares