Author: Sarah Laskow / Source: Atlas Obscura
This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. Previously: The “demon core” that killed two scientists, missing nuclear warheads, what happens when a missile falls back into its silo, the bombs that fell on North Carolina
Three and half minutes into the test, it was clear that something had gone wrong.
At 7:30 a.m. on December 18, 1970, the Baneberry test began at the Nevada Test Site. A nuclear bomb had been lowered into a hole a little more than seven feet in diameter. More than 900 feet underground, the bomb—relatively small for a nuclear bomb—was detonated.
Less than a decade before, after the U.S. signed onto the Partial Test Ban Treaty, nuclear testing had gone underground. The treaty was meant to stop the venting of nuclear materials into the atmosphere and limit human exposure to radioactive fallout. But the Baneberry test, named for a desert shrub, did…
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