Mururoa

Mururoa
NASA image of Mururoa
Waters	Pacific Ocean
archipelago	Tuamotu Archipelago
Geographical location	21 ° 51 ′  S , 138 ° 56 ′  W Coordinates: 21 ° 51 ′  S , 138 ° 56 ′  W
Number of islands	over 30
Land area	15 km²
Lagoon area	148 km²
Residents	uninhabited
Map of Mururoa

Mururoa (actually Moruroa ; in the local language roughly: "big secret") is an approximately 300 square kilometer, uninhabited atoll in the South Pacific , which has been known as the nuclear weapons test site in France since 1966 .

location

The Mururoa lagoon, 1972

Mururoa is located in the southeast of the Tuamotu Archipelago , which is part of French Polynesia . Mururoa belongs to the municipality of Tureia . The atoll was discovered in 1767 by Philipp Carteret on the HMS Swallow for Europe and originally called the Bishop of Osnaburgh Island.

Nuclear tests

From 1966 to 1996, a total of 188 atomic bombs were detonated on Mururoa, 41 of them in the atmosphere and 147 underground. The first above-ground nuclear weapon test took place on July 2, 1966 under the code name " Aldébaran ".

On September 7, 1995, despite international protests, a further series of tests by France led to serious unrest in Tahiti . After worldwide protests, the explosions are now being simulated on the computer. In 2000 the French withdrew from the atoll. Mururoa is still a restricted area today . Large amounts of radioactive waste are stored there in around 140 boreholes .

See also

• Gambier Islands
• Fangataufa - France's second atoll for nuclear weapons tests

Web links

• Deutschlandfunk: Atomic aftershocks in the Pacific. The consequences of the French nuclear tests on Mururoa
• Nuclear weapons A – Z: Moruroa Atoll

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Deutschlandfunk.de , " Background " , July 1, 2016, Suzanne Krause: Radiant contaminated sites in Polynesia (July 2, 2016)
2. ↑ atomwaffena-z.info : Moruroa Atoll ( Memento from June 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (October 28, 2010)
3. ↑ Augsburger Allgemeine of September 7, 2010, column Das Datum
4. ↑ France urged to clean up deadly waste from its nuclear tests in Polynesia theguardian.com, accessed on March 28, 2019