---
title: "Nuclear Waste Tomb Unlikely to Survive Climate Change"
description: "A nuclear tomb full of radioactive material is at risk of busting open as climate change causes both sea levels and temperatures to rise."
date: "2019-11-13"
modified: "2019-11-13"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nuclear-tomb-unlikely-survive-climate-change"
categories:
  - "Climate Change"
  - "Environment"
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "marshall islands"
  - "nuclear testing"
  - "runit dome"
  - "the digest"
---

# Nuclear Waste Tomb Unlikely to Survive Climate Change

![A nuclear tomb full of radioactive material is at risk of busting open as climate change causes both sea levels and temperatures to rise.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/nuclear-tomb-unlikely-survive-climate-change.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: US Defense Special Weapons Agency\</em\>*

## Radiation Situation

There's a ticking time bomb in the middle of the Pacific Ocean — and climate change could set it off at any moment.

A new [investigation](<https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/>) by the *Los Angeles Times* has found that the [Runit Dome](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/radioactive-waste-coffin-leaking-pacific>) — a massive "tomb" in the Marshall Islands containing radioactive soil and debris from nuclear bomb tests — is at risk of busting open as climate change causes both sea levels and temperatures to rise.

## Bombs Away

During the Cold War, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands. It also conducted a dozen biological weapons tests in the region and shipped 130 tons of irradiated soil from a Nevada testing site there.

The U.S. then mixed all that irradiated soil and debris with concrete, dumped it into a crater created by one of the bombs, and capped the whole thing off with an 18-inch-thick concrete dome in 1980.

## Passing the Buck

According to the *LA Times* story, climate change has already caused cracks in the nuclear tomb.

That's led officials in the Marshall Islands to ask the U.S. government for help securing the Runit Dome's contents — but they were told that since the dome is on land belonging to the Marshall Islands, it's the Marshallese government's responsibility.

"I’m like, how can it \[the dome\] be ours?" Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine told the *LA Times*. "We don’t want it. We didn’t build it. The garbage inside is not ours. It’s theirs."

**READ MORE:** [How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster](<https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/>) \[*The Los Angeles Times*\]

**More on the nuclear tomb:** *[UN: A "Radioactive Coffin" May Be Leaking Into the Ocean](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/radioactive-waste-coffin-leaking-pacific>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)