Kazakhs urge caution around return to nuclear testing

Bangkok Post Group

As Russia warns of the rising risk of nuclear war, and relations with the United States sink into a deep freeze, communities close to the vast Soviet-era nuclear testing site in northern Kazakhstan have a message for leaders. - REUTERS

Transcript

00:00 This barren steppe in northern Kazakhstan was once the theater of devastating nuclear

00:05 tests, causing radiation that impacted the local environment and people's health.

00:11 As Russia warns of the rising risk of a nuclear war and relations with the United States sink

00:17 to a deep freeze, communities close to the vast Soviet-era nuclear testing site have

00:23 a message for leaders.

00:25 Tserikbey Yibaray is a local leader in the village of Sarizul. He saw tests being carried

00:30 out just miles away when he was a boy.

00:37 We are the people who have witnessed the consequences of the nuclear test site. If the countries

00:41 resume nuclear tests, if this is going to repeat itself, the population of the world

00:45 would be killed.

00:46 Let our sufferings teach others a lesson. It's necessary to convey our distress to other

00:51 people. If this resumes, then humankind will disappear.

00:54 Between 1949 and 1989, hundreds of nuclear tests were carried out near Semei, a town

01:05 close to the Kazakh-Russian border. When devices detonated above ground, authorities ordered

01:12 locals out of homes and schools because of fears that ground tremors might cause buildings

01:17 to collapse.

01:19 Baglin Gabulin lives in Kainar, another village that lived under the shadow of nuclear testing.

01:32 I remember I was five years old. I was very young. We were told training was supposed

01:37 to take place. At a certain point in time, leave the house and do not look towards the

01:43 Degelin mountain. But we were young and curious, so we looked in that direction. First came

01:55 a yellow flash and a black mushroom after it. The adults tried to drive us away.

02:08 While villages such as Kainar and Sarizor were exposed to direct radiation, stabbed

02:14 winds carried nuclear fallout across an area the size of Italy. The effect of the radiation

02:19 continues to affect lives there.

02:21 Umit Bibasheva, also from Kainar, says her sister was seriously impacted by the nuclear

02:27 tests.

02:28 This is my sister, Saule Bibasheva. She was born in 1961. At school, she only made it

02:35 to the third year. She is a victim of the test site. She has been sick since her childhood.

02:40 We have shown her to different doctors, but she never left home after she finished the

02:43 third year at school.

02:47 Kazakh authorities estimate up to 1.5 million people were exposed to residual radioactive

02:53 fallout during testing. Over one million received certificates confirming their status as victims

03:00 of tests, making them eligible for a $40 monthly payout.

03:05 Today, radiation meters are still buzzing, and much of the territory is still considered

03:11 too contaminated to inhabit or cultivate.

03:15 Many proliferation experts believe a resumption of testing by either nuclear superpower is

03:21 unlikely any time soon.

03:22 But tensions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine have led to an increasingly hostile rhetoric.

03:28 In early November, President Vladimir Putin revoked Russia's ratification of the global

03:34 treaty banning nuclear weapons tests.

03:37 Moscow says it will not lead to a resumption of testing unless the United States does it

03:42 first.

03:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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