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Semipalatinsk Test Site facilities are under the jurisdiction of the
National Nuclear Center of the
Republic of Kazakhstan, which is involved in civilian activities and conversion
of the site to non-defense uses. The National Nuclear Center includes three
research institutes in the town of Kurchatov and three research
reactors at the Semipalatinsk test site. For
information on these reactors and associated facilities please see Kazakhstan:
Research Facilities. For more information on testing activities please
see the brochure on Semipalatinsk
prepared for the Second International Conference on Nuclear Non-Proliferation
(September 1998), and the abstracts
of the proceedings of the conference.
The Semipalatinsk test range, covering an area of 18,000 sq. km, was officially
closed by President Nazarbayev on 29 August 1991.[1,2] Between 1949 and
1989, 456 nuclear tests, including 340 underground and 116 atmospheric tests,
were conducted at Semipalatinsk Test Site facilities.[3] Semipalatinsk's Degelen
Mountain nuclear test facility (located at test site
G, in the southern portion of the test site), was the largest underground
nuclear test site in the world, consisting of 186 separate tunnels
in
natural mountain formations. Between 11 October 1961 and 10 October
1989, 224 tests were conducted there. Aside
from Degelen Mountain, underground tests were also conducted at Balapan, in vertical holes drilled in the ground rather than in tunnels.
These holes are about 500-600 meters deep and the bottoms of the holes
are up to 900 meters in diameter. The last nuclear test conducted
at the Semipalatinsk Test Site took place at Balapan in November 1989.[4]
From
1997-2000, a series of calibrated explosions destroyed testing infrastructure
at Degelen and Balapan as part of a joint US-Kazakhstan effort under the
Weapons
of Mass Destruction Elimination Initiative, Cooperative
Threat Reduction program. For more information on the explosions,
see the entries for 10/3/95,
9/21/98,
9/25/99,
and 7/29/2000 in the
Semipalatinsk:
Developments section of the NIS Profiles database. There
are no fences around the perimeter of Semipalatinsk; people and animals roam
freely across the former test site. Only the Baykal-1
and IGR
research reactor complexes are cordoned off, according to National Nuclear
Center officials. According to Kazakhstani nuclear physicists, extensive
mining operations are underway at the test site: beryllium, coal, and gold
are mined and table salt is produced from a lake located near
the main test field. In addition, scrap metal is gathered illegally
from the site. According to some reports, bore holes at Degelen Mountain
have been breached by scrap metal gatherers, although National Nuclear Center
officials deny this.[5]
For additional
information on Semipalatinsk, see Conversion of
the Semipalatinsk Test Site, a presentation given by Dr. Yuriy Cherepnin in
September 1997 at Semipalatinsk.
Page last updated 3 October 2001
For more recent developments,
see the Semipalatinsk Test Site Developments file.
Comments or questions? Contact Kenley Butler at MIIS CNS: Kenley.Butler@miis.edu
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