MADRID, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish Nuclear Security Council (CSN) has admitted in a communiqué that radioactive contamination exists in various sites in the country.
"There are diverse terrains in Spain which present radioactivity which has originated from human activity. This contamination comes from accidents or practices which happened in the past," says the organization, which nevertheless insists "there is no significant radiological risk."
The sites the CSN lists are located throughout Spain. One of them is near the Jarama river to the south west of Madrid where nuclear waste was buried in eight ditches following a leak in 1970.
The best known site is "Palomares" in the southeast of Spain, where four hydrogen bombs fell after a famous accident involving a U.S. B-52 bomber and a refueling plane in January 1966.
Fortunately none of the bombs exploded, but two of them did release Plutonium, contaminating "40 hectares of land, divided into four separate zones," according to the CSN.
Other areas with nuclear contamination are in an area known as the "Marismas de Medana" situated in the estuary of the River Tinto in the province of Huelva in southwest Spain, where "an area of ground known as CRI-9" of approximately 1,600 square meters has the presence of Resium-137.
There is another side in the River Tinto "where an area of around 1,200 hectares has the presence of Radium-226."
Meanwhile, an area of 108 hectares close to Cartagena in southeast Spain is contaminated by Uranium-238, which is also present in the "reservoir of the River Ebro in the locality of Flix (northeast Spain)" along with "phosphate muds, which have been cleared," according to the CSN.
