Fallout from US nuclear tests reached extensive area of globe

Japan Press Weekly

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Fallout from US nuclear tests reached extensive area of globe

Radioactive fallout from nuclear test explosions the United States conducted at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific in 1954 covered a vast area, including the U.S. and Japan, according to a U.S. declassified document.

This was revealed at a press conference on September 27 by Yamashita Masatoshi, representing an organization in Kochi Prefecture supporting survivors of the U.S. nuclear tests.

The document was compiled in May 1955 by the U.S. Weather Bureau and the U.S. Energy Department. Its excerpts were published in 1984. Yamashita and his colleagues downloaded the whole text from the Energy Department’s website in March this year and carefully examined it.

They found out that the total amount of radioactive fallout from the series of 1954 U.S. nuclear test explosions (Operation Castle) was estimated at 22.73 mega-curies, and that the affected area stretched in an oval shape, covering Japan, the U.S. and Africa.

In a hydrogen bomb test at the atoll on March 1, 1954, hundreds of Japanese fishing boats, including Daigo Fukuryumaru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") were exposed to large amounts of radiation.

- Akahata, September 28, 2010