Sarah Quinn
Runit Island in Marshall Islands
Runit Island, located in the Marshall Islands, is a small but significant island with a fascinating history. In the late 1940s, the U.S. established a nuclear testing facility on the island and conducted a series of atomic bomb tests, including the infamous Castle Bravo test in 1954, which resulted in the detonation of the most powerful nuclear device ever tested by the U.S.
The Runit Dome, also referred to as the “Cactus Dome,” was built as a result of these tests. This dome was built to hold and confine the soil and radioactive waste left behind after the nuclear tests. Despite being intended as a temporary fix, it is still on the island today, more than 60 years after it was constructed.
