Béryl incident participant Pierre Messmer
The "Béryl incident" was a French nuclear test, conducted on May 1, 1962, during which nine soldiers of the 621st Groupe d'Armes Spéciales unit were heavily contaminated by radioactivity.
The test took place at In Eker, Algeria, then a French department, and was designed as an underground shaft test. Due to improper sealing of the shaft, radioactive rock and dust were released into the atmosphere. The soldiers were exposed to as much as 600 mSv. As many as 100 additional personnel were exposed to lower levels of radiation, estimated at about 50 mSv, when the radioactive cloud produced by the blast passed over the command post, due to an unexpected change in wind direction. Among those exposed were several French government officials, including French Defense Minister Pierre Messmer and Gaston Palewski, Minister of Scientific Research.
A number of people from a local village were also exposed to radiation.A radioactive cloud escaping
On May 1, 1962, during the second subterranean test, the spiral did not seem to collapse early enough and the plug had been pulverized. The door closing the gallery at the end was projected several tens of meters letting out a cloud of radioactive gas and particles outside the test site. A fraction of the radioactivity was expelled with the gas, lava, and slag. The lava solidified on the floor of the gallery, but the particulates and the gaseous products formed a cloud which culminated at about 2,600 m of altitude, leading to radioactive fallout detectable for a few hundred kilometers downwind from the site.
According to the witness Pierre Messmer, some seconds after the ground trembling caused by the explosion, the spectators saw “a kind of gigantic blowtorch flame that started exactly horizontal in our direction… This gigantic flame was extinguished rather quickly and was followed by the release of a cloud which was ochre-coloured at first, but then quickly turned black.”
Recordings from devices measuring radioactivity were immediately put under military secrecy.Contamination of spectators
The radioactive cloud was pushed by the wind to the east, with in this direction, significant atmospheric contamination measured up to around 150 kilometers. A certain number of dignitaries, including two ministers (Pierre Messmer, Defense Minister, and Gaston Palewski, Minister of Scientific Research) attended the tests, as well as several military and civilians (one thousand people total).Pierre Messmer rushed to leave the same evening after decontamination. It would have been more dignified for the chief of the armies to manage the accident. He denied any contamination.
Panicked Atomic Energy Commission personnel washed themselves frantically in an effort to decontaminate themselves. The rush caused by the haste of the participants' decontamination gave rise to little worthy occurrences on the part of some officials after the testimony of Sodeteg (contractor) personnel.