Entire Cast of Survivor Guatemala Killed in Nuclear Bunker-Buster Test Blunder

Guatemala City, Guatemala, December 2, 2005 -- Fans and viewers of the popular CBS reality television show Survivor Guatemala: The Maya Empire were dealt a disappointing blow with the admission by the US Defense Department that it had inadvertently vaporized the entire remaining cast in a nuclear weapons testing blunder yesterday.

A spokesman for CBS said the incident was "regrettable", but added that the network plans to continue the series with a resurrected cast of surviving former Survivors under the name Survivor Guatemala: The Day After.

The unfortunate incident, which abruptly took the lives of eight Survivor members, two sound technicians and seven Steadicam operators, was apparently triggered when a covert military operations officer accidentally transposed a pair of coordinates to be used in the secret weapons test. The officer, identified only as "Major X", said he was "truly sorry about the mistake" and extended the families of the dead Survivors "his very best wishes".

Killed in the blast were Survivors Bobby Jon Drinkard, Cindy Hall, Danni Boatwright, Gary Hogeboom, Jamie Newton, Lydia Morales, Rafe Judkins and Stephenie LaGrossa. Also in the area was Survivor Judd Sergeant IV, who apparently met his demise in an unrelated incident in which he was killed and eaten by hungry fellow Survivors a few hours before the detonation. An unauthorized SMS sent by one of the dead Survivors before the explosion reportedly stated that the rotund Judd was "delicious, juicy, and very tender".

Survivors of the blast are former Survivors Jim Lynch, Morgan McDevitt, Brianna Varela, Brooke Struck, Blake Towsley, Margaret Bobonich, Amy O'Hara, Brandon Bellinger, Brian Corridan, all of whom had the good fortune to be voted off the show prior to the accident. The former Survivor survivors will be flown back to Guatemala "at the earliest opportunity" to continue the series under its new Survivor Guatemala: The Day After title.

"I'm pretty lucky, I guess," said an ambivalent Brandon Bellinger, who was voted out in early November. "I mean, I really wanted to get that million dollar check, but I guess I'm glad I got voted out before that nuclear bunker-buster hit. Now I guess I get a second chance, so I'm happy about that, too. I really hope I get that million dollar check this time. And that they don't drop any more nuclear bunker-busters, because that would really suck. Especially if I was close to getting that check."

A spokesman for the Defense Department explained that the explosion was an unanticipated result of a covert nuclear bunker-buster testing program that was being run without congressional approval or oversight. The testing was being undertaken in secret due to widespread bi-partisan condemnation by lawmakers, pundits, and the public of the expanded tactical nuclear weapons development programs proposed by President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"With everyone – Congress, the press, the international community – running around talking about 'loose nukes' and nuclear proliferation, it just seemed like a good idea to move our own tactical nuclear weapons development projects off the books, as it were," the spokesman, who asked not to be identified, explained.

The Bush administration announced in early November of this year that it would be suspending its numerous weapons of mass destruction development programs, including the so-called "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" or "bunker-buster" and the "Vigorous Congressional Oversight Remediator", or "budget-crusher", immediately.

According to the Defense Department spokesman, the administration did, as promised, suspend publicly acknowledged testing of these new nuclear weapons, but, in accordance with standard Bush administration praxis, then continued nuclear testing in a covert operation known as "Nuke 'Em If You Got 'Em". The program was secretly authorized by Bush and Cheney and financed by one of Donald Rumsfeld's many military slush funds.

"It seemed to be working fine," said the spokesman. "This was one of our first live tests. We were trying to drop the nuclear earth penetrator in a remote region of Guatemala that also, according to our internal records, contains a lot of leftover buried corpses from CIA covert ops in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, so we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone. You wouldn't want those to surface, what with Bush I's fingerprints all over them, of course. Then a couple of coordinates got switched, and poof. Collateral damage. We really weren't planning to kill a bunch of Survivors."

CBS said it will be relocating the shooting of the revised Survivor Guatemala series due to the fact that the original location is now heavily irradiated and will be uninhabitable "for about 15 to 20 thousand years", according to the Pentagon spokesman. The new location is expected to be announced Tuesday.

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor