US needs to build Marshall Islands' trust over Cold War nuclear dump -US agency

A mushroom cloud rises with ships below during Operation Crossroads nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands in this 1946 handout provided by the U.S. Library of Congress. REUTERS/U.S. Library of Congress/Handout via Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. energy secretary should build trust with the Republic of the Marshall Islands by developing a plan to communicate clearly over lingering threats from a radioactive waste dump left by U.S. nuclear weapons testing that is now seen at risk of floods from climate change, a U.S. agency said on Wednesday.

The U.S. conducted 67 nuclear bomb tests on the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958. In the late 1970s it deposited radioactive soil and debris from six of the islands into an unlined crater created by one of the tests. The site, called the Runit Dome, was covered with a concrete cap but is now at risk of leaks from flooding due to rising seas caused by climate change, Marshallese officials have said.