Pacific islanders fear radiation at nuclear test islands

Abon sees resettlement of Rongelap Atoll as “impossible” because only a small part of the atoll has had its nuclear contamination cleaned, while the population has grown significantly, meaning they need to use more islands to comfortably resettle.

ISLANDERS LOATH TO RETURN TO NUKED HOME, PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT March 2, 2010,
“….March 1 is a national holiday that recognizes Nuclear Victims Day in the Marshall Islands. This year, which marks the 25th year since Rongelap Islanders’ self-evacuated their radioactive islands, islanders are facing a U.S. ultimatum: move back to Rongelap in 2011 or face cutoff of funding support for the “temporary” community at Mejatto Island in Kwajalein Atoll, where about 400 islanders have lived since their 1985 evacuation…..

…..Mayor James Matayoshi said Rongelap Islanders living on Mejatto have always wanted to return to their home islands, but questions about radiation safety continue to linger —.

…When the 15-megaton Bravo test was detonated in 1954, no warning was given to people on Rongelap and other downwind islands. A snowstorm of radioactivity exposed unsuspecting Rongelap islanders to a near lethal dose of radiation, causing vomiting, skin burns and their hair to fall out — classic symptoms of high-level radiation exposure.

In 1998, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control Radiation Studies Branch report on the Marshall Islands said that the 67 U.S. nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands spewed out 150 times more radioactive-iodine 131 than the 1986 reactive accident at Chernobyl. The majority of islanders exposed in 1954 have had thyroid tumors and cancers…..

Availability of imported food, needed to reduce intake of cesium-137 from staple crops such as coconuts, breadfruit and pandanus, is also a big worry to islanders.

RONGELAP ISLANDERS LOATH TO RETURN TO NUKED HOME – March 2, 2010