Nuclear Testing, Bikini Atoll Program, 1946-58

The nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll program was a series of 23 nuclear devices detonated by the US between 1946-58 at seven test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air and underwater. The first series of tests over Bikini Atoll in July 1946 was code named Operation Crossroads. The second series of tests in 1954 was codenamed Operation Castle. The first detonation, Castle Bravo, was a new design utilizing a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb. Scientists miscalculated and the 15 megaton (Mt) nuclear explosion far exceeded the expected yield of 4 to 8 Mt (6 Mt predicted), and was about 1, 000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. The scientists and military authorities were shocked by the size of the explosion and many of the instruments they had put in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the device were destroyed. Despite the promises made by authorities, this and further nuclear tests (Redwing in 1956 and Hardtack in 1958) rendered Bikini unfit for habitation, contaminating the soil and water, making subsistence farming and fishing too dangerous. The US later paid the islanders and their descendants $125 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program and their displacement from their home island

Picture No

12698636

Media ID

48540518

Size

4500px x 3109px (2.4MB)

Credit

LANL/Science Source/Mary Evans