{"id":541187,"date":"2026-03-15T03:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T03:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/541187\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T03:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T03:22:16","slug":"cracks-appear-in-runit-dome-amid-sea-level-rise-in-marshall-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/541187\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracks appear in Runit Dome amid sea level rise in Marshall Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Celestial stood in radioactive water wearing nothing but shorts and rubber boots.<\/p>\n

The former United States Army truck driver was trying to drain water from a crater that would become a dump site for what he thought was debris left over from World War II.<\/p>\n

He did not know the crater he was standing in was created by a nuclear blast.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Robert Celestial was posted to the Marshall Islands in 1978. (RNZ Pacific: Eleisha Foon)<\/p>\n

“We were on a small island in the Pacific with 500 guys on it, and it was like Alcatraz. You couldn’t escape,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Celestial had been posted to Enewetak Atoll near the northern edge of the Marshall Islands during the late 1970s nuclear clean-up.<\/p>\n

Mission details were vague, but his orders were simple \u2014 transport “contaminated” soil to a small island and dump it into a crater.<\/p>\n

The island was called Runit.<\/p>\n

“We were told it was post-war debris,” he recalls.<\/p>\n

“Years later, we found out there were 43 nuclear detonations there.”<\/p>\n

\"Runit<\/p>\n

Soldiers huddle inside the crater, which would later become the Runit Dome. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Sixty-seven nuclear tests were carried out across Enewetak and Bikini atolls between 1946 and 1958.<\/p>\n

More than 300 Marshallese were removed from their homeland to make way for the US nuclear program, which commenced 80 years ago this year.<\/p>\n

Among the detonations was an 18-kiloton bomb known as Cactus.<\/p>\n

The blast vaporised part of Runit Island and sent a mushroom cloud 6 kilometres into the sky.<\/p>\n

\"Marshalls<\/p>\n

A nuclear explosion on Runit Island, Marshall Islands. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Two decades later, the 10-metre-deep crater it left behind would become a dumping ground for more than 120,000 tonnes of contaminated soil and debris scraped from across the atoll.<\/p>\n

Mr Celestial made countless trips to the crater carrying nuclear debris in the back of his dump truck.<\/p>\n

When the work was done, the crater was sealed with an 18-inch concrete cap, forming what is now called the Runit Dome or \u2014 “The Tomb”.<\/p>\n

But 50 years on, the dome is showing signs of deterioration.<\/p>\n

Cracks line its outer shell, while groundwater flows beneath the structure, allowing contaminated waste to wash into the surrounding lagoon.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Runit Dome is a dumping ground for more than 120,000 tonnes of contaminated soil and debris from nuclear testing. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson)<\/p>\n

Scientists fear rising seas or intensifying storms will eventually degrade the structure and place nearby communities at risk.<\/p>\n

Yet the Marshallese government has little power to address the problem.<\/p>\n

Radiation exposure<\/p>\n

The six months Mr Celestial spent dumping debris into the Runit crater were among the worst of his life.<\/p>\n

But he encountered something worse after he arrived home when boils began appearing all over his body.<\/p>\n

“It was all over my front, my arms, my back and they would bleed,” he said.<\/p>\n

“My uniform was full of blood.”\"Runit<\/p>\n

US soldiers gather for the capping of the dome in 1980. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

He managed only seven years in the armed service before being medically retired.<\/p>\n

In the years since, he said he had suffered a host of health problems, including brittle bone, osteoporosis, arthritis as well as kidney and liver issues.<\/p>\n

He still has boils on his legs and back and receives regular injections.<\/p>\n

It is unclear if all of the conditions are related to the nuclear clean-up.<\/p>\n

According to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, many veterans suffered from cancer and brittle bones after their six-month tours on Enewetak Atoll.<\/p>\n

But it was not until 2023 that the government officially recognised them as “atomic veterans” who could access disability claims.<\/p>\n

“We couldn’t go to the VA [Veterans Affairs] before that so a lot of guys couldn’t get treatment,” Mr Celestial said.<\/p>\n

Despite everything, Mr Celestial considers himself lucky.<\/p>\n

Of the roughly 4,000 troops posted to Enewetak during the 1970s and 80s clean-up, he said only a few hundred were alive today, according to records from the National Association of Atomic Veterans.<\/p>\n

“Many of them died of cancer but I’m the lucky one because I don’t have cancer yet,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

Only a few hundred of the troops posted to Enewetak during the 1970s and 80s nuclear clean-up are alive today, according to records from the National Association of Atomic Veterans. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

What still troubles him is how careless the clean-up effort was.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t do a good job,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t know what the plan was so a lot of the equipment and hot stuff we just dumped into the lagoon.”<\/p>\n

Cracks showing<\/p>\n

Experts worry the dome will not stand the test of time.<\/p>\n

Multiple recent studies have cited cracks present in its concrete cap.<\/p>\n

Another said the structure was never designed to withstand the impacts of climate change, while a United Nations report pointed out it was not watertight.<\/p>\n

Groundwater seeps in and out of the dome’s base with the tides, potentially carrying contaminated material back into the lagoon.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Runit Dome was built in the late 1970s. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson)<\/p>\n

Ivana Nikolic-Hughes, a senior lecturer in chemistry at Columbia University and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, saw the cracks firsthand while measuring radiation levels back in 2018.<\/p>\n

Professor Nikolic-Hughes said elevated radiation levels were found in soil samples outside of the dome.<\/p>\n

“Given that sea levels are rising and there’s indications storms are intensifying, we worry the integrity of the dome could be in jeopardy,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Runit is about 20 miles from where people live and they use the lagoon, so the implications are potentially devastating.”<\/p>\n

About 300 people live in Enewetak today, according to the 2021 census.<\/p>\n

Bikini Atoll, meanwhile, remains too contaminated to inhabit, including Bikini Island \u2014 the Marshall Islands’ highest lying atoll.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

About 600 people live on Enetewak Atoll today. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson)<\/p>\n

But US authorities said the dome was not in imminent danger of collapse.<\/p>\n

The United States Department of Energy said the cracks were consistent with aging concrete and that the lagoon already contained large amounts of radioactive material from past tests.<\/p>\n

It argued any contamination from the dome was small compared with what was already present in the environment.<\/p>\n

However, Professor Nikolic-Hughes was skeptical of that theory.<\/p>\n

“If there’s so much more waste in the lagoon, why build a dome at all?” she said.<\/p>\n

She suspected debris and unexploded bomb material from failed nuclear tests might also be buried inside the structure, although it has never been confirmed.<\/p>\n

\"Ivana<\/p>\n

Professor Ivana Nikolic-Hughes is a senior lecturer in chemistry at Columbia University and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“If you have things like chunks of plutonium, that can be extremely dangerous, it could kill you if you come into contact with it,” she said.<\/p>\n

“So there probably was a good reason why they built the dome, but they are certainly not being open about it.”<\/p>\n

Plutonium-239 is a radioactive element used in nuclear weapons that remains dangerous for more than 24,000 years.<\/p>\n

Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear engineer and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said no concrete structure could endure even for a tiny fraction of that life span.<\/p>\n

“There are already cracks in it in less than 50 years,” he said.<\/p>\n

The ABC has contacted the US Department of Energy for comment.<\/p>\n

Nuclear legacy and climate change collide<\/p>\n

Regardless of what lies inside the dome, the Marshallese government says it lacks the technical and financial capacity to deal with it.<\/p>\n

The Compact of Free Association granted the country independence in 1986 while providing substantial US funding in exchange for military access.<\/p>\n

The agreement also settled “all claims, past, present and future” related to the US nuclear testing program, leaving responsibility for the dome largely with the Marshallese government.<\/p>\n

However, Marshallese officials said they did not have the full picture when the agreement was signed.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Runit Dome sits at the north-east end of Enewetak Ayoll \u2014 about 30 kilometres from communities that use the lagoon as a food source. (NASA\/USGS)<\/p>\n

Former Marshallese health secretary Jack Niedenthal said the dome stood as a monument for America’s mistake.<\/p>\n

“Outside of covering it with cement and doing studies, they really haven’t done a lot to shore it up or fix it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So as we get these rising sea levels where everything is only a few feet above the water at high tide, it’s pretty concerning.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Celestial stood in radioactive water wearing nothing but shorts and rubber boots. The former United States Army…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23285,45799,268133,68,268130,43,44,268131,268134,268132,7968,268129,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-541187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-army","tag-atomic-bomb","tag-bikini-atoll","tag-climate-change","tag-enewetak","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-nuclear-clean-up","tag-nuclear-contamination","tag-nuclear-tomb","tag-rising-sea-levels","tag-runit-dome","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}