Documentary on nuclear tests in Xinjiang

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The People's Republic of China conducted 45 tests (23 atmospheric and 22 underground, all conducted at Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base, in Malan, Xinjiang)

Most damage to Xinjiang locals came from detonations during the 1960s and 1970s, which rained down a mixture of radioactive material and sand from the surrounding desert. Some were three-megaton explosions, 200 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Japanese Professor of physics, Jun Takada, calculated that up to 1.48 million Chinese could have caught radiation disease and up to 190,000 of them could have died of leukemia and cancer, Infox.ru reports with reference to The Times.

The scientist calculated that the so-called nuclear sands of radioactive dust and particles had reached many towns and villages situated along the ancient Silk Road. Takada found vestiges of the radiation disease near the border territory between China and Kazakhstan, a republic of the former Soviet Union.

Takada concluded as a result of his research that China’s three major nuclear tests exceeded the power of the Chernobyl disaster four times. He interviewed many Chinese nationals who were involved in the nuclear tests. Many of them told the scientist that they were still suffering from the disease, that many of their children were born with either dead or with severe deformities.

That was the price that the nation had to pay for the decision that the Chinese leadership made in 1955 to build a nuclear bomb. Mao Zedong was concerned about the nuclear power of the United States . He also wanted to take advantage of the USSR as world’s number one communist state, the Japanese scientist believes. The first nuclear test was made on October 16, 1964.

Forty-six nuclear blasts were made on the Lop Nur test ground, 1,500 miles west of Beijing. There were 46 nuclear blasts performed there: 23 bombs exploded in the atmosphere, 22 under the ground, and one explosion ended unsuccessfully.