An atoll of French Polynesia has mysteriously had half of its satellite image on Google Maps blurred out.
Former French nuclear weapons test site at Moruroa appears on the map with only its left side clearly accessible to those wanting to peak in to see what it's like.
The other half is obscured by a blue blurry blob that hides what is going on it beneath it.
It is unclear why the atoll isn't visible as any other part of satellite image offered by Google Maps, but it is thought it may be due to the ongoing presence of French troops who are there to ensure safety on the former nuclear testing site.
Moruroa, along with the French Polynesian atoll of Fangataufa, became the site for 193 nuclear tests carried out by the French government between 1966 and 1996.
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They included 41 atmospheric tests until 1974 that exposed the local population to high levels of radiation.
According to Greenpeace, the explosions on the island contaminated waters up to Peru and New Zealand, while they sucked up all the water in the lagoon on which they were carried out.
Testing at the site stopped with former French president Jacques Chirac back in 1996, when he ordered the dismantling of nuclear testing equipment amid international protestation.
Analysis published in March of thousands of newly declassified French documents suggest up to 100,000 people who were exposed to radiation at the time may be eligible for compensation, the Guardian reports.
The Mururoa Files, a collaboration between investigative journalism newsroom Disclose, Princeton university’s Program on Science & Global Security and an environmental justice research collective, Interprt, state the impact of the tests have been grossly underestimated over the years.
“The state has tried hard to bury the toxic heritage of these tests,” said Geoffrey Livolsi, Disclose’s editor-in-chief.
“This is the first truly independent scientific attempt to measure the scale of the damage and to acknowledge the thousands of victims of France’s nuclear experiment in the Pacific.”
