INTRODUCTION
Unlike Moruroa, little public attention has focused on France's
second test site at Fangataufa. But while it may remain hidden
from the public eye, Fangataufa is likely to play an important
role in France's resumed testing programme. Reports from Paris
have suggested that the French military are planning to resume
French testing in the South Pacific with a blast at Fangataufa,
possibly in October, and that it may be the site of most of the
eight blasts planned over the next year.
Fangataufa is an oblong-shaped coral atoll with a basalt base,
41 km south east of Moruroa. It was first used as a site for
atmospheric tests, and was then chosen in 1973 as the site for
underground testing after experimental drilling at another atoll,
Eiao, showed the basalt there was too fragile for tests.
Fangataufa is a low-lying coral atoll, with its coral ring rarely
exceeding 200 metres in width. In many places the sea washes
over the low reef into the lagoon, which is 40-42 metres deep.
As Fangataufa was a closed atoll, the French Army had to blast
a 400 metre gap in the coral ring as a pass for their ships,
between 1964 and 1966. The officially sponsored Tazieff
scientific mission of 1981 stated that: "A careful inventory
should be made of the effects caused by the opening up of the
atoll of Fangataufa with a pass before any reactivation of this
test site." If such a study has been made, it has never been
made publicly available.
Fangataufa has a wharf and airstrip built by the military, but
there are no permanent personnel based on the atoll. The atoll
is dominated by a large concrete blockhouse where the nuclear
devices are detonated from, located on the north-east rim, and
several antennae. The testing zones on the atoll are known
as "Empereur", "Echo", "Terme Sud" and "Fregate".
ATMOSPHERIC TESTS AT FANGATAUFA
Fangataufa is a small atoll, 5 km by 8 km and was the location
for five atmospheric tests between 1966 and 1974, including the
largest device ever tested by France, a 2.6 megatonne blast in
1968.
The first atmospheric test at Fangataufa and France's first
airdrop of a nuclear weapon was the Tamoure test of 19 July,
1966. The 60 kt pure plutonium fission bomb was dropped from a
Mirage IVA aircraft over the open ocean adjacent to Fangataufa.
In 1968, France exploded its first thermonuclear bomb from a
balloon
at Fangataufa, the largest ever blast. Code-named "Canopus", the
bomb weighed an estimated three tonnes. After this blast,
Fangataufa was said to be so heavily contaminated that it was
declared off-limits for humans for the next six years.
According to testimonies from workers at the test sites published
by Greenpeace, all vegetation on Fangataufa was destroyed by the
atmospheric tests and planting since then has been largely
unsuccessful. Workers say that in the early 1980's personnel
were still only allowed to work in rotating shifts at Fangataufa
because it was so contaminated. Workers also describe ciguatera,
fish-poisoning which occurs when massive coral death takes place,
occurring at Fangataufa. The living quarters for workers
building the blockhouse were located at Fregate and workers say
the land was so heavily contaminated that travel to the area
where the blockhouse was being built was by boat. Other reports
say that transport also took place in special buses with no
windows and a special air-conditioning system which was air-
tight, because of the serious levels of contamination. One
worker said: "In 1968 I worked on Fangataufa preparing for the
first French hydrogen bomb. When we first arrived Fangataufa was
a lovely place, quiet and undisturbed, with a lot of vegetation.
After the explosion nothing was left. No houses, no man-made
installations, no trees, nothing. The whole place had to be
evacuated because of the radioactive contamination."
("Testimonies", Greenpeace 1990)
After concerted international pressure, a judgement against
France in the World Court, and protests by Greenpeace and other
organisations, France finally announced in 1974 that it would
begin testing underground in 1974, nine years after the 1963
Partial Test Ban Treaty banned tests in the atmosphere.
On 8 June 1974 President Valery Giscard d'Estang announced that
the 1975 programme would be underground: the first two
exploratory underground tests explosions took place at Fangataufa
in June and November. The first took place on the southern rim
of the atoll, with a yield of 20kt. The second was on the
northern rim, a blast of 15kt.
However, from 1976 to 1987 all underground tests took place at
Moruroa, purportedly to avoid the cost of maintaining two test
sites. All tests at Fangataufa since 1988 have taken place under
the lagoon at depths of 500-700 metres.
In March 1988, Vice Admiral Pierre Thireaut, Commander in Chief
of the French in the Pacific, revealed that in order to prevent
serious fractures in the rock at Moruroa that might lead to
radioactive leakage, the most powerful blasts in the testing
programme would from then on be conducted at Fangataufa. The
first test at Fangataufa since 1975 thus took place on 30
November 1988, a blast of 100kt.
According to workers at the site, underground tests at Fangataufa
have caused the atoll to sink in places and shallow craters have
formed in the area of the explosions. There are many prohibited
areas on the atoll because of earlier radioactive contamination.
After the first underground tests in 1975, an eye witness
described a kind of tidal wave washing over Fangataufa and a few
days later thousands of stinking dead fish washed up on the
shore.
There were six underground tests at Fangataufa between November
1988 and May 1991, all in the 70kt - 130 kt range:
FANGATAUFA - FRANCE'S SECRET TEST ZONE
UNDERGROUND TESTS
1988 November 30 Fangataufa 100kt
1989 June 10 Fangataufa 70kt
November 27 Fangataufa 90kt
1990 June 26 Fangataufa 100kt
November 14 Fangataufa 120kt
1991 May 29 Fangataufa 130kt
(July 1995)