China

Revolt stirs among China’s nuclear ghosts
Up to 190,000 may have died as a result of China’s weapons tests: now
ailing survivors want compensation
China Explodes 1st H Bomb 17th June 1967.
Michael Sheridan

The nuclear test grounds in the wastes of the Gobi desert have fallen
silent but veterans of those lonely places are speaking out for the first
time about the terrible price exacted by China’s zealous pursuit of the
atomic bomb.

They talk of picking up radioactive debris with their bare hands, of
sluicing down bombers that had flown through mushroom clouds, of soldiers
dying before their time of strange and rare diseases, and children born
with mysterious cancers.

These were the men and women of Unit 8023, a special detachment charged
with conducting atomic tests at Lop Nur in Xinjiang province, a place of
utter desolation and – until now – complete secrecy.

“I was a member of Unit 8023 for 23 years,” said one old soldier in an
interview. “My job was to go into the blast zone to retrieve test objects
and monitoring equipment after the explosion.

“When my daughter was born she was diagnosed with a huge tumour on her
spinal cord. The doctors blame nuclear fallout. She’s had two major
operations and has lived a life of indescribable hardship. And all we get
from the government is 130 yuan [£13] a month.”

Hardship and risk counted for little when China was determined to join the
nuclear club at any cost.

Soldiers galloped on horseback towards mushroom clouds, with only gas masks
for protection.

Scientists jumped for joy, waving their little red books of Maoist thought,
while atomic debris boiled in the sky.

Engineers even replicated a full-scale Beijing subway station beneath the
sands of the Gobi to test who might survive a Sino-Soviet armageddon.

New research suggests the Chinese nuclear tests from 1964 to 1996 claimed
more lives than those of any other nation. Professor Jun Takada, a Japanese
physicist, has calculated that up to 1.48m people were exposed to fallout
and 190,000 of them may have died from diseases linked to radiation.

“Nuclear sands” - a mixture of dust and fission products - were blown
by prevailing winds from Lop Nur towards towns and villages along the
ancient Silk Road from China to the West.
Lees verder http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6122338.ece