New Addition to List of Nuclear Near Catastrophes

Debris flew for great distances — many times the distance of 270 meters to a nuclear reactor and nuclear storage facility.

By David Swanson

There are many lists of nuclear close calls. We have a new one to add.

On Monday I visited a site in Caracas, Venezuela, where, very early in the morning on January 3, two powerful missiles slammed into the top of a hill, several feet apart, both beneath a tall telecommunications tower. The tower is largely gone. Debris flew for great distances — many times the distance of 270 meters to a nuclear reactor (white in the background in the photo above) and nuclear storage facility. The Earth shook. Buildings a great distance away were damaged and glass windows broken. A building adjacent to the nuclear reactor had rooms most significantly damaged. Electricity was cut off to a wide area, including to the nuclear reactor.

Any use of force whatsoever on any target at all is excessive when attacking someone’s country with violence, but it’s likely that much less force than two massive missiles could have sufficed for the crime of depriving people of electricity and communications. It’s also possible that something could have gone slightly wrong, resulting in a need to evacuate millions of men, women, children, and infants.

Does this bode well for the crime, threatened yet again, of attacking Iran? Will care be taken to avoid nuclear disasters, or in fact will such care be strictly avoided?

Or if Trump loses interest in Iran, could worse be in store for Venezuela?

The site of this nearly nuclear attack was the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research, a non-military facility. The nuclear reactor is for medical purposes, and nuclear materials are returned to this site from hospitals for storage.

The missiles were reportedly fired from perhaps a kilometer away by an F-35 — a wonderful airplane with its own long list of horrors and disasters.

The attack put a halt to research at the institute, and — according to people who had worked there for 30 years — was the first crime of any kind committed on the campus.

Workers were able to use generators and then to restore some power to the reactor in 4 days and full power in 10 days. There is talk of rebuilding the tower. There has also been a proposal to build a memorial on the site.

Visiting this location was part of the fourth day of a peace delegation to Venezuela. See reports on the first three days here:

• A Child’s View of the Attack on Venezuela — And a Peace Flotilla
• Unusual Events in Venezuela
• Caracas Should Have Peace and Friendship, Not War and Piracy