THE American military failed to properly clean up contamination from one of
the world’s worst nuclear weapons accidents, a declassified US government report
reveals.
In 1962, a coral island in the Pacific was contaminated with plutonium after
a missile test went disastrously wrong. But only a cursory attempt was made to
decontaminate the site because of the urgent need to test more nuclear warheads,
says the report.
Johnston Island, a military base 1130 kilometres southwest of Honolulu, was
used by the US to test 14 atomic bombs over six months. The tests, part of
“Operation Dominic”, were conducted during the build-up to the Cuban missile…
