In 1988, plans to dump “toxic waste from Europe” on the island of Annobón were uncovered. This article analyzes the “slow disaster” these plans set into motion, revealing the ways in which it was made possible by the ongoing legacies of Francoist and other colonialisms. It explains how the scheme converted the Annobonese population into “riskable life” and connects it to the 1966 nuclear incident of Palomares. Moreover, it demonstrates how the racist othering of Africa(ns), that had been an important condition of possibility for the disaster, was reproduced in some accounts of it published in Spanish and German print media.