Small
village south of
Baghdad, whose most
notable feature is
the
nuclear plant.
After years of
unchecked pollution by the nuclear plant, the area is
contaminated
beyond belief-according to
Greenpeace, local people
are storing barrels of
"Yellow cake" uranium (a highly concentrated
form of uranium fuel)
in their houses, there are
random
radioactive sources scattered about the village, and much of
this radioactive material was
looted (yes, looted-can you say "
poor
security"?) and used to
build houses, which is obviously a
Bad
Thing.
This had been
exacerbated by the
US army, who refused the
IAEA
permission to
decontaminate the site, then stuck their heads in the
uranium contaminated sand and said that Al-Tuwaitha needs no cleaning.
They have since
relented.
Greenpeace, and the army, have begun the
process of putting the
barrels of uranium yellowcake back in
the plant. And a good thing
too...the village already has 10,000 times the normal (read: safe)
level of radiation.
See also
Chernobyl,
Mayak,
BNFL and
Windscale/
Sellafield.
Sources:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?item_id=
285508
http://www.inb.gov.br/english/yellow.asp