CONTAMINATED BY H-BOMB IN SPAIN
Conflicting accounts are still being given of what happened to the H~bombs a B-52 was carrying when it collided with a tanker plane over Almeria. Cne fact, however, has been officially admitted. fn H-bomb landed in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain. The search is still on for it.
Troops are also methodically scraping the surface of the ground in certain areas and the soil they dig up is being transported for burial in trenches opened near the beach.
Explorations are still being continued in the zone although the ‘accident occurred January 17. The heavy precautions taken indicate the dangerous nature of the mission. The troops wear masks protecting their mouths and noses; they wear gloves up to their elbows as well as boots up to their knees. A strange sight in sunny Spain! —
The special correspondent of the Paris daily Le Monde cabled from Madrid February 11 that those taking part in this work are submitted to continual inspection for signs of radioactive contamination. "It seems that one of the bombs hit a rock. The shock broke the protective band and radioactive elements were presumably spread over the soil."
Despite the assuring words of the American authorities that no harmful consequences need be feared from the accident, sales of fish from the region have declined and prices have dropped considerably. Nobody wants fish from Almeria because of fear that they may be contaminated with the insides of an H-bomb or its A-bomb trigger.
h Spanish ‘diplomat, Rafael Lorente, told the Le Monde correspondent ‘that he and a friend, the well-known architect Robert Puig, happened to be in the area when the planes collided. Both of them _were examined and it was discovered that the architext had suffered a radioactive burn on the knee. His treatment is expected to last another three momths.
Puig told Le Monde that the clothing he was wearing at the time were burned by the medical authorities, leading him to suspect that they had been dangerously contaminated.
fecording. to Rafael Lorente, the population of Almeria is in anguish over what happened. .One of the poorest regions of Spain, its development as a center for tourists began only a few years ago. "This accident can plunge the whole zone once again into the misery from which it had just begun to emerge."
Lorente proposed that "neutral international experts should estimate the contamination or noncontamination of the land and water of this region. If there is actually no contamination, the experts should make it clearly known to all the nations whose eyes are on us at the moment. In case the danger of contamination is real, the
demand should,be made that the contaminated zone, no matter how big, should be evacuated. The United States must not limit itself to paying only a few thousand pesetas.to a small number of peasants and fishermen, as it has done up to now; it must, in accordance with the Gecision of the international ‘experts, indemnify the whole popular tion who suffered damages through this accident." ;
These damages were caused merely by one or more nuclear weapons gracking. open when they hit the ground. What if they | had exploded? | .
/ TEPANESE BOCTALISTS - DEMAND U.S. WITHDRAW TROOPS ‘FROM VIETNAM
At the age of 64, Kozo Sasaki was reelected chairman of the Japan Socialist party in a narrow vote January 22 at the organiza- ‘tion's twenty-seventh national convention. Sasaki has become convinced that the Japan Socialist party has a good chance of winning a national election by 1970. A wave of protest is mounting among _ the Japanese people against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, he holds. He declared that "American imperielism is the common enemy ~ not only of Communist China and Japan but also of the whole world.."
‘The program adopted by the convention includes a