AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
LISBON: A nuclear monitoring station will be built next year on Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores archipelago as part of a global network to detect nuclear explosions, an official said Monday.
The station on Flores island, one of the group's nine volcanic islands, will help enforce the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions, the head of the island's science foundation, Joao Gaspar, told the Lusa news agency.
It will also be used to monitor seismic activity in the archipelago, he said.
Flores was chosen because it has plains and dense vegetation which can protect the station's equipment, he addded.
The monitoring station will be one of more than 300 already in place in over 80 countries which use a variety of technological means, including infrasound, seismology and hydroacoustics, to track potential violations of the treaty.
The stations collect data for a Vienna-based organization that monitors adherence to the treaty.
More than 100 countries have endorsed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, but to take effect it must be signed and ratified by 44 states that participated in a 1996 disarmament conference and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time.
Only 34 have done so. Holdouts include China, Israel and North Korea.
