🇰🇿 Kazakhstan's Polygon Legacy: Silent Bombs | Rewind

For 40 years from, 1949 to 1989, the Soviet Union exploded 460 nuclear bombs in Eastern Kazakhstan. About 200,000 villagers living within 45 kilometres of the test site, the 'Polygon', were exposed to high levels of radiation.
Not only were they not protected but they were treated as human guinea pigs, instruments of study in the event the cold war turned into nuclear war. But what is probably most devastating of all is what is happening today.
Children born decades later and never directly exposed to nuclear fallout are sick and getting sicker. They are the product of "radiation-induced mutation in the chromosomes of sperm and ova". In other words, the damage their parents and grandparents suffered in the Soviet Union's heedlessness has not only been passed down but also intensified in the third, fourth and fifth generations.
However, others have not learned from the mistakes of those who have come before them. Late last year, North Korea triggered a 6.3 magnitude tremor as a result of its own nuclear testing, causing major structural damage and a significant number of casualties.
Shortly after, a 'human-induced' earthquake only kilometres away was recorded; one of an increasing number of earthquakes caused by human activity.
Gillian Foulger, professor of geophysics at Durham University, has compiled a comprehensive list of hundreds of similar instances, as a means to study cause, effect and due consequences.
"It's well-known that this occurs, it has been observed many times - for example, at the Nevada test site, with American nuclear testing. Following these tests, there is such a disruption of the local stress field that swarms of earthquakes often occur," says Foulger.
With the potential for these disruptions to build to full-scale earthquakes, the strongest recorded being a magnitude 7.9 earthquake, which activities should elicit more care and control before they are executed to avoid these repercussions and what can be done to do so?
Editor's note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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[@akbayanbakitzhanova8907]

Thank you Al Jazeera for sharing the truth about polygon in Kazakhstan. Because not all people know about these horrible consequences of Sovet Union experiments. I hope these experiments in other countries will stop in the future and will not have such victims and consequences

[@davidddavoudd9628]

+Jimbo Jones Yeah but they could've carried them out at a remote site in Eastern Russia where theres no humans living rather than detonating them at the heart of the USSR.

[@davidddavoudd9628]

+Jimbo Jones WRONG. Turkmenistan had the lowest population density. And Eastern Russia had a way lower population than Kazakhstan so your argument is nothing but bs.

[@davidddavoudd9628]

+Jimbo Jones So is Eastern Russia...... Places like north of Vladivostok where very few people live.

[@davidddavoudd9628]

+Jimbo Jones So just because Americans tested their weapons on areas with civilians, it was okay for USSR and now Russia to do the same?

[@davidddavoudd9628]

+Jimbo Jones So just because Americans carried out their testings in populated areas, it was 100% okay for Soviets and now Russians to carry them out at populated areas? The Soviets and Russians could've/can carry the testings near Alaska where there's barely any humans.

[@adletissatayev757]

Some positive impacts of being colony of Russia are: losing religion, losing culture, losing language and losing almost half of the Kazakh nation. We are thankful to Allah that we got independence, but still we are desperate nation till nowadays...

[@user-th4ch4ky3g]

Colony of soviet union

[@bethroesch2156]

And no one will ever be held accountable for what has happened

[@danniaddams5502]

The most tragic thing is that children and their parents who weren't alive when it first started are still suffering while many of the people responsible are probably long dead and can't be held responsible and don't have to see what they've done.

[@XHitsugaX]

who do you want to hold accountable? Theyre already dead. Just like the Bikini Atoll is pretty much gone for their inhabitants and people responsible are already dead. I lived 200km away from the Polygon. Im very very lucky to have a healthy family. The elderly and my parents thankfully.

[@michealcorleone3524]

I'm from turkey. I love kazakhstan.

[@MalleeMate]

I’m from Australia. I also love Kazakhstan. For some reason.

[@user-du7dr8cr3r]

Ни кто никогда не заслуживает смерти. Когда просмотрела этот ролик, так было больно за всех. Мы все это почувствовали и пережили. Но многие страдаю и умираю. Братия, сестры, дяди, тети их рядом нет и нам надо старятся жить и ради них, что бы доказать что мы сильнее их кто взрывал ставил опыты!

[@Rakiz7]

Love you Kazakh 😢❤️

[@madinabazarkhan9275]

Oh my holy land🙏🙏🙏 my beloved Kazakh people❤️❤️❤️!

[@elizabethalnadhawi4817]

My heart is broken, how was this possible? 😭😭

[@lazzatibraeva8898]

Мы там жили в Кайнаре, учились в школе, помню как выходили на улицу когда взрывали, сколько людей умерло с тех пор. Многие болеют, так и живут, нет не каких условий.

[@perfectcanadian1054]

Oh my god that man sings great 😃😃

[@eniteoa]

Incredible, at 21:00 we can see white dot and line appears sign of intense radioactivity. Nuclear bomb testing have never been clean anywhere but soviets takes the human's carelessness to unchallenged levels.

[@Abo.Jessica6]

Love Kazakhstan from Kurdistan

[@HellfrozeoverDitto-lj1rm]

Whatever country tested their bombs should be held accountable, shame on those country. May god have mercy on those that knew on this.

[@rimat6636]

Who decides whose life is worth nothing? Too little too late. Nobody to fight the injustice.. Money is everything. Prove yet again.

[@batrider322]

So many years we were colony of Russia :(

[@momotyan3774]

@BAKAII UULU MANAS from 1731 is it enough?

[@user-dq9kv5gu5q]

Oh, It's about my country..)

[@darrpow7286]

@4:49 it was because of the explosion, unfortunately.

[@lanehewitt7685]

That first guy sounded like a Geordie.

[@ninaw.3440]

This world is disgusting...We'd better go instinct, honestly...

[@mogazamoha7906]

Exctinct yes

[@mariadakila]

What had they been doing to innocent people? Worst human beings due to greed of power. They basically destroyed humanity and that beautiful land of Kazakhstan

[@jamiejesson7527]

Callous disregard for the local population

[@danniaddams5502]

Whoa.

[@j.claudiobarbozajr.1173]

Human beings... working on evil and emptiness since Genesis

[@derricktaite1916]

Pure evil that's all I got to say about that

[@Aisultan_Vamos]

Почему мало посмотрв

[@bauerjan7887]

Kemal Santa-Maria what a beautiful name😂

[@riverdeep399]

Бауыржан Қайратұлы santa maria is a mexican voodoo religion :D wonder if he knows..

[@alquaridzmiehussien1764]

isnt it santeria?

[@halmeoniruth4693]

Sad!

[@isuru717]

😢

[@eldosabilhanov1589]

Aljazeera

[@mikecarone7320]

What about China

[@robertrussell8965]

another example of the USSR doing USSR stuff......always at the cost of the 'proletariat.'

[@qulleboy7039]

Sorry A Z

[@qulleboy7039]

Sorry K Z

[@samuelstarr6067]

so blind you you all are, her granddaughter is the key, via genetics and exposure she had evolves to resist the radiation. say what you want... you dont know the human body as well as me.