The threat of additional nuclear weapons testing touches all of us, every day. Many countries are on the verge of gaining nuclear weapons technology. The consequences of nuclear weapons tests are under our eyes: The Semipalatinsk Polygon.
In Semipalatinsk, In the period 1949-1989 456 nuclear weapons were tested.
The impact of the radiation on the population of the nearby inhabited areas was kept hidden for several decades by the Soviet authorities. The nuclear fallout directly affected 2 million people. The villages and cities around the shooting range were never evacuated and the population still lives with the consequences of contamination. What happened on Semipalatinsk Polygon is one of the greatest crimes planned against humanity. The local population was used as guinea pigs to understand the consequences of radiation on people.
Today life goes on, struggling among the legacy of the cold war that continue today, and will remains, with its tremendous consequences, for millennia.