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Nuclear clean up starts after forty years
By h.b. - Oct 9, 2006 - 8:19 AM

One of the bombs which was recovered by the fisherman Francisco Simó - Archive Photo EFE

Four American nuclear bombs fell on Almería province in 1966

EDITORIAL COMMENT -

Forty years and nine months ago, Manuel Fraga, who was then Franco’s Minister for Tourism, went swimming in the Mediterranean close to Palomares on the Almería coastline.

He did so to reassure the public that everything was safe following an air accident which resulted in two United States atomic bombs falling onto Spanish soil.

It was on January 17th 1966 when two B52 US bombers were on routine flights from Turkey and Georgia and were being refuelled over Almeria. Each plane was carrying four thermonuclear bombs 75 times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the planes arrived eight minutes too early and crashed into the refuelling craft busting into flames and dropping its four bombs. The parachutes which should have opened failed on two of the bombs which then fell in Palomares releasing kilos of Plutonium.

Another bomb was recovered from the sea intact, and the fourth famously recovered from the sea months later by a local fisherman called Paco.

Quite obviously Fraga’s bathe was an early attempt to fool the public, by authorities who themselves did not know exactly what had happened or how dangerous the effects were.

The Spanish Centre for Energy, Environment and Technological Investigation, CIEMAT, was measuring in the area in 2001 and realised then that there was still higher levels of plutonium and uranium in the area than there should have been, and with building planned for the area the Government decided to compulsory purchase the ten hectares thought to be most affected. The Unites States was also contacted then as a decontamination plan was drawn up.

Well, better late than never, finally an agreement is reported to have been reached under which the United States has undertaken to pay for the clean up. Hopefully in the intervening forty years clean up techniques have improved and are now more effective, but the truth is until they go in and start the process no one really knows how bad the contamination is. The work to clear it up could take several years.

The story is a strange one, but surely the strangest thing of all is that is has taken over forty years for the United States to finally accept their role in the clean up and that practically nothing has been done in the meantime.
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