1. Okunoshima
Sometimes known as Rabbit Island, Okunoshima was for years home to Japan’s World War II poison gas factory. Because secrecy was so important to the Japanese – they had just signed the treaty banning poison gas in war – they wiped the island off their maps. Six kilotons of mustard gas were produced here, with rabbits used as the laboratory animals.
2. Farallon Island
Farallon Island, situated off the coast of San Francisco, is absolutely beautiful. It is a Natural Wildlife Refuge with whales, seals and sharks, and a home to many seabirds. Divers visit to explore the area – but there is a major safety concern. For many years, from 1946 to 1970, the sea in the area was used as a nuclear waste dump. The exact risk to the environment is unknown, but the belief is that trying to raise the containers from the area surrounding Farallon Island will cause more danger than leaving them where they are. In all there are 47,500 55-gallon drums. That’s a whole lot of hazardous waste.
3. Bikini Atoll
Operation Crossroads, which took place in 1946, consisted of a series of nuclear explosions at Bikini Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. One of these blasts was the Baker explosion (pictured top), which released highly radioactive water which contaminated numerous nearby vessels that subsequently needed to be decontaminated.
Then in March 1954, the United States also exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in Operation Castle Bravo – the biggest nuclear blast ever created by the US. Massive radiation fell out far beyond expectations, extensively contaminating nearby islands as well as the crew of at least one Japanese fishing boat on which 23 sailors became contaminated. The scandal was the basis for the movie Godzilla, in fact. In 1968 the US government decided that Bikini Atoll was fit for habitation again, but unfortunately they spoke too soon.
2. Vozrozhdeniya
The island of Vozrozhdeniya, also somewhat ironically known as Rebirth Island, and now shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is unique in that with the shrinking waters of the Aral Sea it has now effectively rejoined the mainland. However, though it may no longer technically be an island, we still don’t think you will want to step foot on it! In 1948, the Soviets established a bio-weapons lab here that tested some of the most dangerous disease agents known. Smallpox, anthrax and tularemia are just a few of them.
4. Miyakejima
You have to be brave to live on this patch of land. Miyakejima Island, nestled in the Izu island group off Japan, is a volcanic island with an active volcano that erupts every few years, but much more deadly is the poisonous sulfuric gas that seeps from the mountain as well as from the ground.
5. Gruinard Island
In the Second World War, the British government decided to test anthrax as a bioweapon and compulsorily purchased Gruinard Island from its owners for use as a testing site. The island, part of Scotland, remained contaminated with anthrax for decades – at least until 1986, when 280 tonnes of formaldehyde were sprayed on the island to kill the spores.
