Place
Rongelap Atoll
Atoll of the Marshall Islands downwind of Bikini, where fallout from the Bravo test fell on 1 March 1954.
- Wikidata
- Q542619
Connections 6
involved in
- Castle Bravo fallout fell here Primary record 1
- Project 4.1 people examined every year Primary record 1
- Return to Rongelap, 1957 people returned in June 1957 Primary record 1
harmed by
birthplace of
- Lijon Eknilang Primary record 2
located in
- Marshall Islands Primary record 2
Proof 2 sources
-
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Final Report, Chapter 12: The Marshallese, U.S. Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (copy on the U.S. Department of Energy Openness site), 1995.
Primary record
A change in wind direction carried fallout from the test toward Rongelap and other inhabited atolls downwind of it.
After their return to their native island in 1957, the Rongelapese continued to be monitored annually by the Brookhaven teams.
The exposed Rongelap people and 200 other Rongelapese, who were not on the atoll at the time of the Bravo shot, were returned to their home islands at the end of June.
The populations of the Rongelap and Utirik Atolls were evacuated, but not until after they had received serious radiation exposure (about 200 roentgens on Rongelap and about 20 on Utirik).
Thyroid abnormalities, in addition to the one fatal case of leukemia, have been the most significant late effect of radiation among the Marshallese.
about 90 percent of the children and 30 percent of the adults lost hair
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Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: public sitting of 14 November 1995, verbatim record CR 95/32 (statement of Lijon Eknilang for the Marshall Islands), International Court of Justice, 14 Nov 1995.
Primary record
Archived copy
My name is Lijon Eknilang. I was born on Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, and I lived there at the time of the nuclear weapons testing programme
Rongelap is approximately 150 kilometres southeast of Bikini Atoll, and about 470 kilometres downwind from Enewetak Atoll, which were the sites of the nuclear detonations during the testing programme.
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