nuclear-news

World’s most nuclear contaminated island left uninhabitable for 77 years

   https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/02/the-small-pacific-islands-left-uninhabitable-after-nuclear-testing-16930680/

Jasper King, Saturday 2 Jul 2022 In the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies the world’s most nuclear contaminated island, devastated since the days of the Hiroshima and Nagisaki nuclear attacks.

The small coral islands of Bikini Atoll have remained uninhabited since 1945 when atomic bombs were dropped in Japan and the United States started using them for nuclear tests.

The tiny population of 167 people were advised to move elsewhere by the military and told the tests were necessary to prevent any future wars.

No one has lived there since.

The islands met the military’s criteria because it was under US control – as detailed in a report by the Natural Resources Defence Council and within 1,000 miles of a base from which bombers could take off.

The lagoon the atoll encircled offered a protected harbour for Navy ships, including vessels used as targets.

But residents who were moved from the island at the time were angry, however their leader King Juda at the time said: ‘We will go, believing that everything is in the hands of God.’

Although it was promised residents could eventually return one day, they were instead permanently relocated to other islands in the Marshalls

Between 1946 and 1958, the US detonated 23 nuclear devices on the islands, including 20 hydrogen bombs.

The Castle Bravo H-bomb test was conducted on the islands on March 1, 1954, and reached a yield of 15 megatons – 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb which destroyed Nagisaki in 1945.

The bomb’s blast in to the air is estimated to be the equivalent of 216 Empire State Buildings, according to Stanford 

July 4, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, weapons and war