Climate Change Is Exposing Cold War Nuclear Graveyards

The U.S. buried its radioactive crimes — then walked away. But the rising ocean has other plans.

Runit Dome, “The Tomb,” next to the nuclear lagoon. A pair of eyes far from being natural. (Source: )

The ocean here shimmers like glass, hiding what it has no power to forget. On the surface, it’s paradise — turquoise waters lapping at coral shores, vines tumbling over volcanic rock. But buried in the white sand of , half-submerged and slowly fracturing, lies a Cold War graveyard.

They call it The Tomb.

At first glance, the resembles something from science fiction: a cracked concrete hemisphere, 377 feet wide, poured hastily over radioactive soil and debris left behind by the United States after detonating 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Officially, it holds 85,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste — enough to fill 35 Olympic swimming pools. Unofficially, it’s a leaking time capsule of imperialism, sealed with denial and left to sink.