Hurd's Deep
Hurd's Deep (also Hurd Deep ; French Fosse des Casquets ) is an elongated low in the western English Channel , northwest of the Channel Islands , and the deepest part of the English Channel.
geography
The deep is in British waters. It begins north of the island of Alderney or Cape de La Hague at the northwestern end of the Cotentin peninsula , extends almost in a straight line in a west-southwest direction and ends north of Perros-Guirec or south of Plymouth . Hurd's Deep is a trough about 90 nautical miles (150 km) long and 1 to 3 nautical miles (1.5 to 5 km) wide, which is 172 meters deep at its deepest point, 55 to 90 m deeper than the neighboring seabed, and thus the deepest point in the English Channel. It was probably named after Captain Thomas Hurd (1747–1823), a hydrograph in the Royal Navy .
Ammunition dump and ship graveyard
After the First World War , the British government dumped both chemical and conventional ammunition in the Hurd's Deep, and on August 16, 1921, the former German large-scale ship SMS Baden was sunk by the Royal Navy during artillery tests in the Hurd's Deep after it had served its purpose as a target ship .
Even after the Second World War , ammunition, weapons and other military equipment were sunk there, initially from July 13, 1945 to July 31, 1946, the material left behind by German troops on the Channel Islands.
On April 16, 1951, the British submarine HMS Affray , an Amphion- class boat, sank with 75 men in the Hurd's Deep for reasons unknown. It was the last British submarine ever lost at sea.
Nuclear waste dump
Not only did British ammunition continue to be routinely dumped in the Hurd's Deep from 1946 to 1974, but significant amounts of low- and medium- level radioactive waste were also dumped in significant amounts until 1973 . Hurd's Deep was an approved landfill for low-emission waste and was used by the UKAEA . In the years from 1950 to 1963 alone, around 61,550 barrels of radioactive waste with a total weight of 16,300 tons were dumped in the Hurd's Deep. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency's 1999 Global Inventory of Radioactive Wastes in the Marine Environment report , the activity of radioactive material stored in Hurd's Deep was 57,942 GigaBecquerel . In June 2000 two Greenpeace ships used underwater photographs to document the extent and condition of the nuclear waste dumps. The recordings showed rusting and shattered light metal barrels with radioactive waste. In April 2013, evidence was found that not all barrels are rusted, but that some intact barrels are still lying on the bottom, which will still give off their radiation in the future. In addition, increased ambient radiation was measured on the coast of the nearby island of Alderney.
Coordinates: 49 ° 51 ′ N , 2 ° 25 ′ W
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Nuclear dumping leak sparks concern
- ↑ a b Thousands of radioactive waste barrels rusting ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Dumping of Radioactive Waste at Sea (Ministry of Defense website); Retrieved December 13, 2011
- ↑ Hurd Deep: Nuclear waste cans discovered in the English Channel
- ↑ Radioactive contaminated sites: intact nuclear waste barrels discovered in the English Channel
