THE Soviet Union covered up two nuclear accidents that happened decades ago at an atomic bomb factory in Siberia, say Russian scientists who’ve dated stray radioactive particles from a local river. By keeping the accidents secret the Soviets placed thousands of residents living downstream of the plant at risk from cancer. The radioactive contamination could still be a threat today.
Krasnoyarsk-26 was one of the Soviet Union’s three big secret atomic bomb complexes. Built inside a hill 50 kilometres north of Krasnoyarsk in the 1950s, the complex housed three reactors making plutonium.
Two reactors, closed down in 1992 and 1993,…
