Marhskelikn nuclear incident

The Marhskelikn nuclear incident was an accidental minor nuclear detonation of a nuclear device during the early hours of the 5th of April 1956 in the Wulf 2 military base, located near the city of Marhskelikn in northern Izlegal. The incident marks the only occurance of self inflicted casualties caused by a nations own nuclear weapon. The event, while considered small in terms of radiation exposure, the subsequent response and cleanup of the incident were horribly mismanaged, leading to a multitude of avoidable deaths and a near nuclear contamination of the Izlegal river. It is considered one of largest blunders in military weapon production and a national tragedy by future Izlegalian republics.

The incident occured during the late production phase of Project dauþusluftus, a military production plan with the intent of generating nuclear weaponry for the Izlegalian second republic's army, when the assembled uranium core nuclear warhead, codenamed unhulþo-1, was accidentally detonated while the warhead was being moved for loading onto a truck. The onloading crane onsite was suffering from technical issues and was in need of repair at the time of the move. General Arhwazna Azgo, supervising head of the project at Wulf 2, was impatient and demanded the warhead to be moved onto the truck by whatever means necessary. A construction crane was procurred and used to pick up and move the warhead. The crane however was reportedly in need of new chains which had rusted due to exposure. It is speculated that the chain of the crane snapped while the warhead was suspened mid air. The impact of the fall then broke the safety and caused the gun-type assembled warhead to fire, sending the warhead into a supercritical state and exploding. The material in the warhead fizzled however, and the explosion released the equivilant of 200 tons of TNT, missing it's expected payload of approximately 15 kilotons. The explosion destroyed large parts of the facility with any parts surviving the initial blast being affected by fires and structural instability. At least 60% of the facility was destroyed immediately and all surviving personel being heavily injured or burned. Half of all reported personel on the day were either found with traumatic injuries that killed them almost immediately following the explosion or were never found and are assumed killed by the warhead. The onsite refinery was also compromised by fires, causing radioactive material to contaminate the air. The fires were contained quickly however, reducing the amount of radiation spread beyond the site. Once the situation was stabalized by mid afternoon, an exclusion zone was established covering a 25km range, after concerns of the airborne radiation and how far it had spread. Further concerns were also placed on the Izlegal river after a number of tanks of used nuclear material were found near the shores of the river, likely moved away from the facility to ensure any remaining dangerous substances were removed. The containers were not compromised however.

The incident saw an intense state of panic emerge from neighbouring serpentine nations who mistook the incident as the beginning of a nuclear conflict by a serpentine nation who had yet to claim responsability for the attack. When sources finally revealed it was an accidental detonation of a Izlegalian warhead on home soil the mood flipped and saw conflict arise over the incident. The Second Izlegalian republic would collapse in the wake of the conflict and internal shock caused by the incident. Izlegal would retain independance under the Third republic after signing the treaty of [Location], which demanded the immediate cessation of nuclear production as part of it. In 1966, ten years after the incident, the city of Marhskelikn was removed from the exclusion zone and was permitted resettlement.