Operation Totem - Fallout

Fallout

Efforts were made to prevent nomadic Aboriginal People from entering the area around the test site, but there were thought to be no (or at most very few) people in such a dry and inhospitable environment. The chief scientist at the Australian Department of Supply, W. A. S. Butement asserted that "I am given to understand that the area is no longer used by Aborigines". The precautions consisted of warnings sent to pastoral stations in August 1953, warning notices around the perimeter of the test site, and aerial and ground searches, usually within 20 miles of the site, which were made with increasing frequency as the test firings approached. The 1985 Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia determined that the area was still being occasionally used and the efforts have been criticised as inadequate.

Before the tests, the height of the radioactive cloud resulting from the explosions was estimated at 12,000 feet, (+/-1000 feet). This led to safety criteria for making the decision to detonate the device that the wind direction from ground level up to 10 000 feet should not lie between 330 and 130 degrees and that no rain was forecast closer than 200 miles downwind. However the cloud from the Totem 1 shot rose to 15,000 feet, drifting east and crossing the coast 50 hours later near Townsville.

Following the Totem 1 test, a black mist rolled across the landscape at the Wallatina and Welbourn Hill stations in the Granite Downs 175 km from the test site and led to unacceptably high levels of radioactive contamination of these locations. There is controversy surrounding injuries received by Aboriginal People from fallout, and in particular from this mist. Approximately 45 Yankunytjatjara people were reported to have been caught in the mist at Wallatina and fallen ill, and over half may have died.

The 1985 Royal Commission concluded that "Aboriginal people experienced radioactive fallout from Totem 1 in the form of a black mist or cloud at or near Wallatina. This may have made some people temporarily ill. The Royal Commission does not have sufficient evidence to say whether or not it caused other illnesses or injuries".

The Totem 2 cloud rose even higher, to 28,000 feet because of condensation of moisture entrained in it, and whilst the wind direction below 12,000 feet was an acceptable 10 degrees, at 20,000 feet it was 270 degrees. However high winds dispersed the cloud so that it had dissipated to the point where it could not be tracked beyond around 500 km east of the test site.