Bakytbek Asankulov, the Kyrgyz emergency situations ministry's employee in charge of radioactive security, stands near new "Dalneye" tailings dump amid the ongoing disposal work over Soviet-era radioactive nuclear waste in the town of Min-Kush, some 300 kms from Bishkek, on October 18, 2024. (Photo by VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO / AFP)
Min-Kush, Kyrgyzstan: In a mask and a hazmat suit, Ermek Murataliyev drives a truck filled with Soviet-era radioactive waste along the winding mountain roads of Kyrgyzstan.
His is a hazardous mission: two such trucks crashed into ravines over the summer.
Drivers in this former Soviet Central Asian state are forbidden to stop until they reach their final destination -- a storage zone where the waste will be buried under thick layers of compacted clay and rock.
Murataliyev had to undergo a medical inspection and have regular health checks to get the job.
"I have been trained on how to keep myself safe," he said.
Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race, when Central Asia provided the Soviet Union with all of its uranium.
Kyrgyz authorities say there are now six million cubic metres of radioactive waste in 30 sites such as Min-Kush, which require complex and costly disposal measures.
"When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kyrgyzstan had neither the equipment nor the money to transfer the waste to safe sites," said Ilgiz Ernis, deputy mayor of the Min-Kush municipality.
"The process was badly delayed," he said.
The disposal work is now in its final stages and is being carried out by the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom as well as the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
