Algeria has launched a second decontamination operation to remove radioactive waste from a former French nuclear test site in the Sahara Desert. Spearheaded by military engineers under the supervision of the Ministry of National Defence, the clean-up is focusing on the “Beryl E2” underground test tunnel site located in the In Ekker area of the southern Tamanrasset province. This follows a previous partial cleanup operation initiated in the same region in February.
Algerian specialist teams are identifying highly contaminated zones, collecting irradiated equipment, and securing radioactive remnants inside custom-built concrete containers. The Ministry of National Defence stated that the operation relies entirely on national technical expertise, equipment, and human resources, executed in accordance with international safety standards.
The Algerian government has sharply criticised France for “evading its criminal responsibility” and continuously refusing to hand over historical archives and maps. Without these records, the exact burial locations of nuclear waste remain hidden, which Algerian authorities say directly blocks local economic and infrastructure development in impacted regions like In Ekker and Reggane.
Between 1960 and 1966, France conducted 17 nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara. This included both atmospheric detonations, such as the massive Gerboise Bleue (Blue Jerboa) test near Reggane in 1960, and underground blasts in the Hoggar Mountains. France continued this nuclear test programme for four years after Algeria gained its independence in 1962 under the terms of the Evian Accords. Decades later, the residual fallout continues to cause severe long-term health crises and environmental contamination across North Africa.
The “Béryl incident” occurred in May 1962 during a French underground nuclear test code-named Béryl. It took place at Mount Taourirt Tan Affella in the In Ekker region, just two months after the Evian Accords granted Algeria its independence. The test was designed to fire a 30-40 kiloton atom bomb inside a deep shaft drilled into the granite mountain. It aimed to test a prototype nuclear warhead for France’s Mirage IVA bombers.
Despite adverse wind directions and warnings from safety officers, military commanders pushed forward with the detonation. The shockwave violently shook the mountain range, but the concrete shaft sealing failed. The explosion blasted fissures through the mountain face, spewing a massive cloud of highly radioactive gas, rock, dust, and black smoke into the atmosphere.
The radioactive cloud drifted over the military command post and viewing areas. Over a thousand people were exposed. While the French military prioritised decontaminating its own personnel, French authorities severely downplayed the immediate health risks to the regional Algerian population. An estimated 240-1,000 local Tuareg nomads and villagers were heavily exposed as the fallout plume travelled over 150 kilometres eastward. Radioactive material has continued to seep out of the fractured mountain.
The technical details of Algeria’s decontamination operation at the “Beryl E2” nuclear test tunnel focus on isolation, containment, and radiological mapping. Led by the military engineers of the People’s National Army (ANP), the operation follows a rigid, scientifically staged protocol.
Because France has withheld official maps and archives detailing where nuclear waste was buried, the first phase involves rigorous field analysis. Teams use specialised handheld radiation detectors and vehicle-mounted sensors to map radiation fields and establish “hot-spot” boundaries. The surveying targets residual fission products from the 1962 accident, specifically focusing on long-lived radioactive materials such as plutonium and caesium-137.
Once radioactive zones are identified, specialists begin clearing decades of surface and subsurface debris. Teams are collecting highly irradiated military equipment, scrap metal, vehicle remnants, and tools left behind by French colonial forces. Irradiated vitrified rock and contaminated sand (radioactive slag formed during the high-temperature blasts) are mechanically excavated from the vicinity of the tunnel mouth.
Due to the long half-lives of the contaminants, permanent isolation is required to prevent environmental spread. The collected waste is transferred into reinforced concrete containers specifically engineered to block gamma radiation and withstand extreme desert heat. The containers are designed to permanently entomb the waste, preventing radioactive particulates from spreading into the atmosphere via desert winds or leaching into rare Saharan underground aquifers.
The operation is managed as a high-risk military engineering task to minimise radiation exposure. The military has established a localised “partial decontamination camp” near the In Ekker site. This facility manages the staging of heavy machinery and implements strict wash-down protocols for personnel and vehicles leaving the hot zones. The operation is coordinated with the National Agency for the Rehabilitation of Former French Nuclear Test Sites, aligning national military protocols with international radiation protection baselines.
The military employs armoured platforms equipped with heavy scarifying steel brushes, scrapers, and front-loading buckets. These protect operators from ground-level radiation while scraping away vitrified radioactive “slag” and contaminated sands. Standard heavy cargo trucks and armoured recovery cranes are used to hoist deeply buried French colonial scrap metal, vehicles, and test machinery onto transport beds.
To prevent highly dangerous plutonium and caesium-137 particulates from blowing across the Sahara, the engineering teams use mobile environmental misting and extraction units to damp down areas before excavation.
The survey teams use technology developed or calibrated by the Nuclear Research Centre of Algiers (Comena). Because alpha emitters like plutonium pose severe internal health risks if inhaled, operators use specialised hand-held thin mica-window Geiger-Müller survey meters and scintillation probes. These are held centimeters from debris to isolate alpha and beta hot-spots.
Sodium Iodide (NaI) type instruments are used to detect photon-emitting isotopes like Caesium-137 trapped within the rock folds of the Beryl E2 tunnel. Engineers operating inside the containment zones wear high-grade level-A type protective suits paired with continuous electronic alarming dosimeters to log hourly exposure rates.
