Kazakhstan
Say-Utes
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This page is part of the Facilities Collection.
From 1949-1989, the Soviet Union conducted more than 400 nuclear test explosions in Kazakhstan, for both military and peaceful purposes. 1 2 The majority of these tests occurred, including the first successful Soviet test in 1949, occurred at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan. 3 These tests imparted a legacy of radiation exposure to the local population, harmful environmental effects, and a negative health impacts for the people living near the testing sites. 4
The Soviet Union conducted three peaceful nuclear explosions at Say-Utes in 1969 and1970. 5
Sources
- Smantay Tleubergenov, Poligony Kazakhstana (Almaty: Gylym, 1997), pp. 56, 134.
- M. D. Nordyke, “The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1 September 2000, www.llnl.gov.
- “The Soviet Union’s Nuclear Testing Program,” The Preparatory Committee for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, www.ctbto.org.
- James Lerager, “Second Sunset – Victims of Soviet Nuclear Testing,” Sierra: Vol. 77, No. 2, 1 March 1992.
- Smantay Tleubergenov, Ekologiya cheloveka (Almaty: Gylym, 1993), p. 195; Information provided to NISNP by the Kazakhstan Atomic Energy Agency, 26 October 1996; “Radiation Situation on the Territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” Aziya-Ezh, No. 47, November 1996, p. 23; in “Kazakhstan: Results of Radioactive Contamination Study,” FBIS-SOV-96-252-S.