Rainout in Polynesia: How French nuclear testing caused fallout by rain
Background information
After the Second World War, and the existential threat that nuclear weapons placed on the world after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the French government made the decision to manufacture and test thermonuclear devices in the 1950s. Initial tests were in the Algerian Sahara Desert, but were moved to the French Overseas Territory of French Polynesia in the 1960s, specifically the Muroroa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago, and the island of Fangatufa. [2] The French had forcibly colonised these territories in the late 19th century, where the islands were used for trade, and nuclear experimentation, as well as a strategic foothold in the Pacific region. [3] "Atomic testing on the atolls enabled France to keep the nuclear clout it needed to remain one of the world's leading powers." [4]
This experimentation was seen as both dangerous and illegal, especially in light of the 1953 Partial Test Ban Treaty which forbid nuclear experimentation in the atmosphere but not underground. [5] While the French did not sign the treaty, it was under an international obligation to abide by these regulations, with its continued testing seen as highly objectionable – as exemplified by the archival documented and ensuing questions of legality. Despite this, testing continued. By the start of 1974, the French had performed 34 nuclear tests in the region, by 1996 when the French stopped testing, this number was at 193. [6] Up until 1976, all of these experiments were in the atmosphere, and had a huge impact on the local Polynesian flora and fauna; the impacts symbolised in the iconic image of a mushroom cloud over the Mururoa Atoll. [7] One of the most devastating impacts, and one that is only coming to the surface with recent testimony, is the occurrence of rainout: where radioactive particles are agitated and accumulate into rainclouds as the result of an explosion. In causing rainout, the French government’s tests caused plutonium fallout, with toxic, radioactive material to literally raining down on the Polynesian region, exposing the local environs and peoples to levels of radiation hundreds or even thousands of times above safe levels. Either because of a lack of understanding about the true consequences of nuclear products, or because of a level of wilful ignorance from the French, precautions were seldom employed. Protective equipment was non-existent, safe distances and time were never employed, people and their environments, their homes, were abused at the hands of this testing regime. This is the story of the French nuclear testing program in Polynesia, rainout, and the dire costs that the program had.
The Lived Experience of Rainout
“We had to wait inside the shelters until the rain passed,” in the words of Daniel, a local farmer from one of the islands of French Polynesia. [8] After the various blasts conducted by the French, massive amounts of water and debris were sucked up into the fallout clouds that gave rise to rainout. Over the course of the testing regime, scores of radioactive storms soaked French personnel, food crops, water catchments, houses, and local people. Children played amongst the unknowingly toxic 'snow' and rubbed it in their hair and on their skin. After a test on the 11th of September, 1966, populated areas were hammered by radioactivity. Even Samoa, 3,700km downwind, saw beta radioactivity increase by a multiplier of 1850. [9] The islets of encircling reef were all covered with irradiated fish and clams, whose flesh began to rot, [10] meaning that this marine life was neither consumable, nor pleasant. Deadly chemicals like caesium, strontium, and plutonium - some of which have a half-life, the time it takes for radioactive decay to decline, of 30 years - were deposited into the ocean, onto coral, plants, and the ground. The tests repeatedly contaminated neighbouring islands, where populations were frequently evacuated; albeit without a proper sense of the impacts of these events. This lack of precaution was not purely, however, one-sided. French troops describe an astouding naïveté in performing their operations. One veteran remembers being stationed 15 miles from an explosion in the 1960s, wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt. He was tasked with sailing directly into the mushroom cloud after the explosion to examine the damage, doing irreparable damage to his body. Others were simply told to wear sunglasses, and turn their backs to the explosions. [11] The impacts of the French tests were vast and long-standing, with thousands of individuals affected across a multitude of regions, ethnic, and national groups.
Legacy
The French government’s testing regime ruined the region. The surrounding environment is completely contaminated as a result of fallout by rainout, but it was to be the human impact that was to take centre stage. Cancer ranks number two on the top five reasons for mortality in French Polynesia, with thyroid cancer especially common, although these statistics are inaccurate seeing as the cancer register only started in 1985. [12] Malformations are frequent among children. No food can grow near test sites. Fallout - some of which as the direct result of the rainout phenomenon - reached as far as Australia, as evidenced by another archival document which measures radioactive contaminants resulting from French testing. In spite of these horrid consequences, the French only acknowledged that there could be a compensation process in 2010, [13] but it is such a periphery issue for the French that there has been no further progress. Perhaps it is another example of Said’s Orientalism, detailing the West’s apparent need to “control, contain, and otherwise govern (through superior knowledge and accommodating power) the Other.” [14] Or perhaps it is another case study embodying Foucault’s notion of the swelling mass of the state; its power, its ceaseless need to dominate, its arrogance, and its ignorance. In any case, a clear, active level of egotism saw the French abuse the region, its environment, and its people, for the sake of colonial gain.
Reflection
This task enabled me to discover and engage with information in a way that is seldom undertaken by people of my generation: through physical form. The act of using my hands to trawl through these real, tangible parcels of history was something special, and allowed me to grab onto a concept much quicker than I normally would diving down the endless digital rabbit-hole; a process that is as much a conscious act by systems, institutions, and people, as it is an unconscious act. In the words of Lowenthal: “The dizzying pace of information technology confines the latest modes of retrieval to experts while consigning familiar time-tested means of access to the dustbin.” [12] This archival box and these documents came upon me purely by chance, but I found the contents of them to be both surprising and shocking. I had never heard of the extent to which the French tested nuclear devices in the Asia-Pacific, but the rate, intensity, and impact of these tests provoked me to write a piece on the lived experience of these tests, and the peculiar atmospheric phenomenon that occurs as a result of them.
Reference List
[1] Goldblat, Jozef. French Nuclear Tests in the Atmosphere: The Question of Legality. Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, March 1974. Accessed 8 April 2019.
[2] Goldblat. French Nuclear Tests in the Atmosphere: The Question of Legality.
[3] "French Polynesia Territory Profile." BBC. 14 April 2016. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16492623. Accessed 15 May 2019.
[4] "French Polynesia Territory Profile." BBC.
[5] Goldblat. French Nuclear Tests in the Atmosphere: The Question of Legality.
[6] Feldmann, Kim. "Beyond radioactivity: how French nuclear tests changed Polynesia forever." Equal Times. https://www.equaltimes.org/beyond-radioactivity-how-french#.XNTyZNMza3U. Accessed 16 May 2019.
[7] Mushroom Cloud rises above the Mururoa atoll. 1971. Photograph. Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-11/news-briefs/france-sued-over-past-nuclear-tests.
[8] Feldmann. "Beyond radioactivity: how French nuclear tests changed Polynesia forever."
[9] Ruff, Tilman A. "The humanitarian impact and implications of nuclear test explosions in the Pacific region." International Review of the Red Cross 97, no. 899 (2015): 775-813.
[10] Danielsson, Bengt. "Poisoned Pacific: The Legacy of French Nuclear Testing." The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 46, no. 2 (March 1990): 22-32.
[11] Chrisafis, Angelique. "French nuclear tests 'showered vast areas of Polynesia with radioactivity'." The Guardian. 4 July 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/03/french-nuclear-tests-polynesia-declassified. Accessed 17 May 2019.
[12] Veeken, Hans. "French Polynesia: a nuclear paradise in the Pacific." British Medical Journal 311, no. 7003, (19 August 1995): 497-502.
[13] Angelique. "French nuclear tests."
[14] Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
[15] Lowenthal, David. "Arhives, Heritage, and History." In Archives, Documentation, and Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar, edited by Francis X Blouin, William G Rosenberg, 193-206. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.