One of the great Spanish focal points of radium expectations in the 20th century. The engineer from Córdoba, Antonio Carbonell, had spent decades studying the pegmatites and rare minerals of northern Córdob and had been publishing on radioactive substances since at least 1916. By 1940 he had already documented uranium, radium, beryllium, and other strategic minerals in the area, as well as pointing out thousands of other possible locations. He founded «Berilo y Radio Español» and turned the enclave into a promising mining site.

That fever transformed the territory: first, precarious settlements appeared, with adobe huts and brushwood roofs, but later, villages like Santa Bárbara emerged, with 46 houses, running water, electricity, bathrooms, and permanent medical services, something exceptional for the time. In 1945, after the atomic bombs, the Francoist state declared radioactive deposits strategic, sidelined Carbonell, and took control. Carbonell died two years later.

Then the decline came with the realization that uranium did not form large continuous veins, but rather scattered, expensive, and unproductive pockets, leaving the villages almost empty.

In 1961, the Nuclear Energy Board silently began introducing radioactive waste into the inactive Beta Mine. This nuclear cemetery remained secret until 1976, when two Cordoban journalists bravely exposed it in the article «Andalucía, vertedero atómico». They denounced using an impoverished region for those purposes, as well as exposing a total lack of safety measures symbolized by a «Danger: Radioactivity» rusted sign left abandoned on a pile of firewood.

In 1986, ENRESA took over El Cabril, reconditioned the old village, and directed the emptying of the mine and the launch of the modern storage system. Today, the site no longer produces minerals, but it retains a paradox difficult to match: it was a failed mine, a nuclear cemetery, and the origin of some of the best known brannerites worldwide.

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Wikipedia:	https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cabril

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