Though not the most well-known atomic blast sites, the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls were victims of 46 bombs dropped by the US between 1946 and 1958.

As such, parts of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii, are still more more radioactive than Chernobyl all these years later.

That in and of itself is a big problem, but larger still is the aging of a “nuclear coffin” that has been tasked with trying to contain a pit of radioactive waste since some of the first atomic bomb tests some 80 years ago.

The Runit Dome, also know as the Cactus Dome or The Tomb, is a 17-inch thick concrete dome with a 377-foot diameter.

The dome stands out like a sore thumb against the lush island backdrop, a harbinger of its sordid past and the radiation it encapsulates.

Filled with heaps of irradiated soil and debris from six different islands and literal tons of contaminated soil from Nevada, in the late 1970s, the giant pit is located on Runit Island, one of the forty islands of the Enewetak Atoll.

The contaminated soil was blended with concrete and encapsulated with a dome, a then temporary solution that is now nearing 50 years old.

As early as 2019, cracks were discovered in the dome, a consequence of rising temperatures in the region. Rising sea levels are also impacting the shores of Runit Island, eroding the concrete and causing it to bleed radioactive material into the surrounding soil and waters.

It’s a problem on a global scale, one that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave voice to in 2019.

“I’ve just been with the president of the Marshall Islands [Hilda Heine], who is very worried because there is a risk of leaking of radioactive materials that are contained in a kind of coffin in the area,” Guterres said during a tour.

After the US military withdrew from the region in 1986, it paid a a “full settlement of all claims, past, present and future” relating to the nuclear test program.

That means that the United States is all but absolved of any current and future issues, leaving any potential issues in the hands of the Marshall Islands.

Though they are remote, parts of the Marshall Islands are home to thousands of people, many of whom were deeply and horrifically impacted by the dropping of atomic bombs.

Cancer rates, for instance, significantly increased in some parts of the islands, perhaps as a result of the radiation.

Additionally, due to the high levels of radiation in the area, many people were forced to leave the islands altogether. Though the US offered to pay to relocate people, some wonder now if that was enough – and what the future of the islands will be.

In 2022, scientists from Columbia University recommended that the US Congress fund independent research on radioactive contamination in Marshall, but as of yet, congress has not agreed.

“The U.S. must prioritize the restoration of these islands and the resettlement of their people as a matter of human rights and environmental justice. What the U.S. has done so far is simply not enough,” Hart Rapaport and Ivana Nikolić Hughes said in an opinion piece published in Scientific American.

Though the problem hasn’t reached the dire stage yet, it seems inevitable.

“As long as the plutonium stays put under the dome, it won’t be a large new source of radiation to the Pacific Ocean,” Ken Buesseler, a world-renowned expert in marine radioactivity at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said in 2020.

“But lot depends on future sea-level rise and how things like storms and seasonal high tides affect the flow of water in and out of the dome. It’s a small source right now, but we need to monitor it more regularly to understand what’s happening, and get the data directly to the affected communities in the region,” explained Buesseler.

This will be a situation to monitor in the near-future and beyond.

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