Sandstorm – The Sahara of Nuclear Tests

In the late 1950s, the war in northern Algeria was at its peak. Yet, more than a thousand kilometers from the battlefield, a massive project was emerging from the Saharan sands: the atomic bomb. Officers and scientists from the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) were establishing France’s first atomic testing center. On February 13, 1960, at 7:04 a.m., France’s first atomic bomb—codenamed "Gerboise Bleue" (Blue Jerboa) and with a yield of sixty kilotons—was detonated. The town of Reggane lay just forty kilometers from ground zero. Between 1960 and 1966, the French military conducted seventeen tests: four atmospheric explosions near the town of Reggane and thirteen underground tests in the Hoggar region. Half a century later, no epidemiological study has ever been carried out to determine the health and environmental impacts of these tests.

Director

Larbi Benchiha

Writer

Larbi Benchiha

Released

January 1, 2008

Language

French