Semipalatinsk nuclear safety zone will be established at the former test site. The corresponding bill was approved today in the Mazhilis. The Lower House plans to conduct a large-scale environmental survey of the land. Clean lands, which are not heavily polluted, will be returned for agricultural purposes.
“The bill on the ‘Semipalatinsk nuclear safety zone’ was worked out to solve environmental problems. It is suggested to appoint an organization responsible for carrying out the work at the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. Secondly, it is necessary to determine the boundaries and areas of territories with excess radiation contamination and not heavily polluted lands following a comprehensive environmental survey and state environmental expertise. Thirdly, it is envisaged to establish the Semipalatinsk nuclear safety zone on contaminated lands and their transfer to land use by an authorized organization,” said Bolat Akchulakov, Kazakh Energy Minister.
More than one and a half million people suffered in at least 456 nuclear tests that were carried out at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, the area of which occupies over 18,000 square kilometers. The total power of the explosions is 250 times greater than the force of the nuclear charge dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The test site was closed in 1991 by the decree of Kazakhstan’s First President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Translation by Saniya Sakenova
Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova
Web-editor: Admin
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