When four nuclear bombs fell onto Spanish village of Palomares

REVISITED © FRANCE 24

During the Cold War, the US military conducted manoeuvres in Spain’s Andalusia region. On January 17, 1966, a bomber and a supply plane collided in mid-air. From the belly of the bomber, four thermonuclear bombs fell to the ground. There was no nuclear explosion, as luckily they were unarmed. But they scattered highly radioactive plutonium over 250 hectares around the sleepy farming village of Palomares. The US tried to downplay the incident and quickly cleaned up the site, but left 50,000 cubic metres of plutonium-contaminated soil. More than half a century later, the accident is still a source of tension between Madrid and Washington. FRANCE 24's Céline Schmitt and Armelle Exposito report.