[2004 is the fiftieth anniversary of the Hydrogen Bomb test at Bikini that has rendered the island and nearby atolls uninhabitable ever since. Two earlier Japan Focus articles portrayed the impact of the blast on the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon, and the subsequent course of the anti-nuclear movement. The two articles presented here detail the consequences of atomic and hydrogen bomb testing on Bikini and neighboring atolls, including the consequences for displaced people, the continued failure of the U.S. government to clean up the radioactive islands, and the long stalled negotiations with the U.S. government to compensate the people of Bikini.]

 

“If Bravo had been set off in Washington and the fallout headed northeast, everyone from Washington to Boston would be dead”: Statement by Senator Tomaki Juda on the 50th Anniversary the H-Bomb Test on Bikini

 

Today, March 1, is the 50th anniversary of the Bravo shot — the largest U.S. nuclear test in history. It is a sad day for us and for our friends and relatives all around the Marshall Islands. That test, that day — like radiation itself — still lingers in the Marshall islands after half a century, and, like radiation, it will not go away.

 

Most people here know the story of our people. It is in history books, government reports, and films. Next Saturday, March 6, will mark the 58th anniversary of the day that we were moved off our islands by the U.S. Navy for Operation Crossroads, the first tests of atomic weapons after World War II.

 

We were first moved to Rongerik, where we nearly starved to death, then to Kwajalein, and then finally to Kili in 1948. Sadly, Kili remains home to most Bikinians, and life there remains difficult. Kili is a single island, while Bikini Atoll has 23 islands and a 243-square mile lagoon. Its land area is more than nine times bigger than Kili. To make matters worse, our population is 15 times larger today than what it was in 1946. Kili has no sheltered fishing grounds, so our skills for lagoon life are useless on Kili. In the past, we sailed our outrigger canoes to lands, fish and islands as far as the eye could see. Today, we are prisoners, trapped on one small island, with no reef and no lagoon.

 

Meanwhile, between 1946 and 1958, the United States tested 23 atomic and hydrogen bombs at Bikini, including the 1954 Bravo shot, which was, at the time, the largest manmade explosion in the history of the world. It is hard to imagine the deadly force of Bravo:

 

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