International Day Against Nuclear Tests 29th August

Since July 16, 1945, there have been  2,056 nuclear test explosions including places like including Lop Nor in China, The Pacific Atolls, Nevada, Algeria, Western Australia, The South Atlantic, Kazakhstan and Russia, just to name a few. A large number of the tests were detonated in the atmosphere and underground. These nuclear blasts vented radioactive material into the atmosphere and contaminated our soils.

The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan near the end of World War II. One on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and another on Nagasaki on 9 August. These two bombs killed almost 200,000 Japanese citizens, with subsequent deaths following from radiation exposure.
Between 1946  – 1949, the United States detonated another six bombs and the Soviet Union on 29 August 1949.
On 3 October 1952, the United Kingdom conducted a test at the Montebello Islands in Western Australia then later at Christmas Island and in the Pacific Ocean.
Between 1955 to 1989, there was an average of 55  nuclear tests year. In 1962,  178 tests and in the second half of the 1980s there were as many as 174 detonations.
Up until 27 January 1996, France conducted 210 nuclear tests in French Polynesia, then India and Pakistan between 1998 and 2013.
In this century, North Korea conducted tests between the 9th October 2006 – 3rd September 2017.

24 September 1996 the ‘Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty’ was formed. The Soviet Union, France, The United Kingdom, China and The United States signing the treaty with 66 other countries to establish a global alarm system to monitor the underground, the atmosphere, and under-waters for any signs of nuclear explosions and undertakings, not to, develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

The “International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons” on September 26th is to see nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of nuclear weapons through a collaboration of international efforts. By supporting the ‘Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament’, our civil society can help secure a healthier future for ourselves and our planet.