SOUTH PACIFIC: MURUROA: FRANCE TO GO AHEAD WITH NUCLEAR TESTING

(27 Jul 1995) Eng/French/Nat
Mounting pressure around the world is making little difference - France has announced it will start nuclear tests in the South pacific on 8 September.
Scientists and environmentalists are unable to predict the extent of damage the tests will cause but fear the worst.
Mururoa atoll juts out from the Pacific 900 miles (1200 km) from Tahiti.
Discovered in 1767, the lagoon is formed from old coral reefs on a long extinct volcano.
But closer inspection shows a series of man-made scars...... the result of French underground nuclear testing since 1976.
175 devices have been exploded here and at the neighbouring atoll of Fangataufa.
Now France intends to explode eight more, starting on 8 September.
Scientists have begun constructing the tube that will contain the explosive device and complex measuring equipment for gauging the power of the test.
France maintains the test is safe for the 15-hundred people or so remaining on the atoll.
But the decision has infuriated environmentalists and countries around the world.
MPs in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe intend to sail in a protest flotilla to the area at the end of the month.
Last month, the French forcibly boarded Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior 2 after it entered the exclusion zone.
The base commander has refused to rule out similar action, even if the flotilla is accompanied by a New Zealand naval vessel.
SOUNDBITE: (French translation)
If it is a boat which is actually Greenpeace that is one thing but then if a state sends a boat which effectively belongs to it that changes the nature of the protest."
SUPER CAPTION: Cap. Col. Patrice Delcourt Commander of Base
Fangataufa is an uninhabited atoll 25 miles (40 Km) from Mururoa.
It is here where the largest devices will be detonated.
Wildlife on the atoll appears thriving, the indigenous flora and fauna at first site unaffected by earlier tests and indifferent to the presence of man.
The only visible signs of testing are registering towers on the shore line.
SOUNDBITE:
We tried to find cesium 134 in the lagoon trying to see if there really was any there, we pulled out 18 tonnes of water but we did not find any evidence"...
SUPER CAPTION: Gerrard Martin Chief of environmental and biological service.
Environmentalists say it's impossible to estimate the damage.
Dr Paul Johnston, principle scientist with Greenpeace Research Laboratories, said that the imminent tests could destroy the Mururoa atoll and leak radioactive material into the Pacific.
SOUNDBITE:
We don't know at this stage what the yield of those tests will be and it's quite possible as predicted by some French scientists that these tests may well be the straw that breaks the structural back of the atoll if you like. So, it's quite possible that the fragmentation that's been suffered by the rock structure, such as the cracking and the fissuring, may well combine with these eight tests to produce something in the way of a catastrophe.
SUPER CAPTION: Dr Paul Johnston, principle scientist with Greenpeace Research Laboratories, Exeter University
Johnston warned that the collapse of the atoll would risk leaking radio active material into the Pacific.
SOUNDBITE:
SUPER CAPTION: Dr Paul Johnston, principle scientist with Greenpeace Research Laboratories, Exeter University.
As criticism of the French decision to resume testing continues, work goes on to prepare the test site.
Floating platforms have already drilled the test holes.

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