Totskoye range nuclear tests

Totskoye range nuclear tests

Totskoye is a military range established in September 1941 to the north of Totskoye village, about 40 km from Buzuluk in Orenburg Oblast, Russia (in Southern Urals) under the jurisdiction of the South Urals Military District

In 1954, nuclear bombing tests were performed in Totskoye range during which some 45,000 people, Soviet soldiers and prisonersFact|date=January 2008, were exposed to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima nine years earlier. At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40 kiloton atomic weapon from 8,000 m (25,000 feet). The bomb exploded 350 m (1,200 feet) above Totskoye range 13km from Totskoye.

The experiment was similar to others performed at the time by USA, USSR, UK and other atomic countries, [ [http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/ethics/issues/scientific/human-nuclear-experiments.htm Human Nuclear Experiments] (last retrieved: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:09:06 +0100)] and was designed to test the performance of military hardware and soldiers in the event of a nuclear war. It involved the 270th Rifle Division, [V.I. Feskov et al, 'The Soviet Army in the Cold War 1945-90, Tomsk, 2004, p.94] 320 planes, 600 tanks and 600 armoured personnel carriers. The villages around the range were evacuated, and Deputy Defence Minister Georgy Zhukov witnessed the blast from an underground nuclear bunker. Five minutes after the blast, the planes were ordered to bomb the explosion site, and three hours later (after the demarcation of the radioactive zone) the armoured vehicles were ordered to practice the taking of a hostile area after a nuclear attack. [ [http://www.neu-samara.de/index.php?artikel=9&sprache=en "Nuclear test in Totskoye in 1954"] (last retrieved: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:09:06 +0100).]

ThousandsFact|date=February 2008 are believed to have died as a result of radiations, both immediately and in the years following. The pilot flying the Tu-4 developed leukemia and his co-pilot developed bone cancer. There are no official figures showing how many of the 45,000 men sent to the range died as a result of the test. People exposed to radiation during tests were denied medical care, their military records were falsified to show different serving places and the test remained secret. [The Sunday Times (UK) article, 24 June 2001.]

Tamara Zlotnikova, a former member of the Russian Duma, is helping survivors fight for compensation. She believes that the toll from the test was enormous. A study carried out by the health ministry on cities with the worst health problems puts Orenburg second out of 88. Even today, the incidence of some cancers in Orenburg, a city 130 miles from the range, is double that of the people who suffered in Chernobyl. [http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html] [http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/ethics/issues/scientific/human-nuclear-experiments.htm] However, there may be other factors such as high pollution levels in the Ural River which contributed to the health problems in Orenburg.

References

*"Nuclear Testing in the USSR. Volume 2. Soviet Nuclear Testing Technologies. Environmental Effects. Safety Provisions. Nuclear Test Sites", Begell-House, Inc., New York, 1998

*A.A. Romanyukha, E.A. Ignatiev, D.V. Ivanov and A.G. Vasilyev , "The Distance Effect on the Individual Exposures Evaluated from the Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test in 1954 at Totskoye Test Site in 1954", Radiation Protection Dosimetry 86:53-58 (1999) [http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/1/53 online abstract]
* [http://www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/tockoe/soder.htm Тоцкое войсковое учение (Totskoye Military Exercise), a book] ru icon


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