Damage from Nuclear Testing More than 2,000 nuclear bomb tests were performed by the United States, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, China, and other nations until the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. India, Pakistan, and North Korea did not sign the treaty and have performed ten known tests since 1996, most recently in 2017. All tests since 1962 have been performed underground. Before that date, the radiation and fallout from atmospheric tests were hazardous to all living things and caused environmental devastation. According to the November/December 1998 issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 935 nuclear tests were performed in Nevada, 828 of which were underground as stated by the US Government. Sink holes caused by underground tests are visible in this photograph. Photograph courtesy of the U. S. Department of Energy. During the 1950s, people who lived where prevailing winds from atmospheric tests exposed them to fallout were sometimes known as “downwinders.” In St. George, Utah, many downwinders were exposed to fallout. This woman lost her son to leukemia in 1959 and her husband to cancer in 1983. Two of her remaining four children are suffering from brain tumors. Photograph by Hiromitsu Toyosaki. Top: The vacant lot of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in the former Soviet Union. Photograph by Takashi Morizumi. Left: Before atmospheric testing ended in 1962, it caused injuries to indigenous people in the Pacific. This boy was exposed to a test on Bikini Island. Photograph provided by U.S. military forces.
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