Honoring Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day

On March 1, 1954, the United States tested its first thermonuclear weapon on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Within one second of the explosion, the fireball created was five miles wide and hotter than the surface of the sun. The explosion was almost three times as powerful as expected, and was the largest explosive device ever tested on Earth to date. The “Bravo Shot” was just one of 67 nuclear weapons tested in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.

Radiation from twelve years of U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands has poisoned twenty-three Japanese fishermen, hundreds—and more likely thousands—of American military personnel, and generations of Marshallese people. Long-term effects and illnesses have included leukemia and fertility issues such as miscarriages, stillbirths, jellyfish babies—babies born with transparent skin and no bones. Since the United States began experimenting with nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, Bikinians and the other Marshallese communities whose land was taken by the U.S. military and whose people were exposed to radioactive fallout have pressed the U.S. government for adequate recompense.

Today is Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day in the Marshall Islands, honoring the victims of U.S. nuclear testing there. The U.S. must continue to ensure survivors receive the support and health care they need. We must also work to end nuclear testing once and for all and work to rid the world of the existential threat of nuclear war.