Atomic testsĀ are conducted on Maralinga lands at Emu Field, South Australia. They are code named Operation Totem. A black cloud passes and hundreds of families are forced to leave their homelands because of severe contamination. Further atom tests followed in 1956 at Maralinga, South Australia – Operation Buffalo. 10 years after the Australian government declared the clean-up of Maralinga as completed (in 2001) erosion continues to expose radioactive waste repositories. The remarkable thing really, is how little [radioactive material] we buried. — Alan Parkinson, retired nuclear engineerĀ [2]