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Nihon Hidakanyo receives accolade for campaign to rid world of nuclear weapons by 'describing the indescribable' 

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Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors' group (11 Oct 2024)

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Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors' group (11 Oct 2024)

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Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group

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Nihon Hidakanyo receives accolade for campaign to rid world of nuclear weapons by ‘describing the indescribable’

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East Asia Resource Center - Jackson School of International Studies

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Providing K-12 educators with opportunities at the University of Washington since 1971 to deepen their knowledge of East Asia.

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National Consortium for Teaching about Asia

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National Consortium for Teaching about Asia

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A building that survived the A-bomb, and the man who tells its story, Japan Times

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A building that survived the A-bomb, and the man who tells its story, Japan Times

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Hiroshima resident Yasuhiro Nanba, 86, can explain all the traces left behind by the 1945 atomic explosion on the building in the city that used to be a Bank of Japan branch.

"You can find another scar here," he said, pointing to a spot on the building, which completed renovations in September last year. "But the building has become too clean now."

While working as a security guard at the building 20 years ago, Nanba compiled and published the accounts of people who worked there at the time of the atomic bombing.

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A building that survived the A-bomb, and the man who tells its story

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A security guard's fascination with the Bank of Japan's Hiroshima branch led him to compile personal accounts of people who were there when the bomb was dropped.

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Nagasaki marks 79 years since atomic bombing as top envoys pay respects in Tokyo, Japan Times

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Nagasaki marks 79 years since atomic bombing as top envoys pay respects in Tokyo, Japan Times

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Nagasaki on Friday held a peace ceremony marking 79 years since an atomic bomb was dropped on the city, as a political controversy saw the ambassadors from the U.S., the U.K. and Israel pay their respects about 1,200 kilometers away at a Tokyo temple.

All three envoys attended Tuesday's ceremony in Hiroshima. But under the cloud of the Israel-Hamas war, Nagasaki, facing pressure from activists and hibakusha, opted not to extend an invitation to the Israeli ambassador, citing security concerns.

The ambassadors from the U.S., the U.K. and other Group of Seven nations said they would skip the ceremony due to Israel being left out.

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Nagasaki marks 79 years since atomic bombing as top envoys pay respects in Tokyo

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The ambassadors from the U.S., the U.K. and other Group of Seven nations skipped the Nagasaki ceremony due to Israel being left out.

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"Court widens benefit eligibility for Nagasaki A-bomb survivors: Kyodo News (9 Sept 2024)

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"Court widens benefit eligibility for Nagasaki A-bomb survivors: Kyodo News (9 Sept 2024)

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Court widens benefit eligibility for Nagasaki A-bomb survivors

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A Japanese court on Monday ruled in favor of some of the plaintiffs who were seeking state health care benefits as survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki after being exposed to the blas

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Anti-nuclear sit-in campaigns in Nagasaki mark over 500 protests, Japan Times

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Anti-nuclear sit-in campaigns in Nagasaki mark over 500 protests, Japan Times

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Anti-nuclear sit-in campaigns in Nagasaki mark over 500 protests

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Held monthly at Nagasaki Peace Park, except during August when the peace memorial ceremony takes place, the sit-ins have become a symbol of unwavering determination.

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"In Marshall Islands, radiation threatens tradition of handing down stories by song" LA Times (2019)

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"In Marshall Islands, radiation threatens tradition of handing down stories by song" LA Times (2019)

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For centuries, the people of the Marshall Islands have told their history through song. They sang of unrequited love, sea voyages, marine life, faith, family legends.

Carlton Abon is perhaps the most famous of the islands' young balladeers. With four studio and two remix albums, he was once a prolific recording artist on this central Pacific nation, which sits roughly 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii.

But over the last decade, Abon's silvery baritone has transformed into a strained rasp. Friends made fun of his hoarse voice. By 2016, he could no longer perform even his own melodies, and so this singer-songwriter, who goes by the stage name Brother C, quit a promising career.

"There has been no music, no nothing in my life," said Abon, who has taken a job doing clerical work in Majuro, the country's largest city, and now leads a reclusive existence.

Abon, a stout man of 40 with a bristly beard and toothless smile, is one of at least a dozen prominent Marshallese musicians with voices damaged by thyroid disorders - a type of illness that increased in the Marshall Islands after residents were exposed to fallout from U.S. nuclear weapons testing. As these singers struggle to sing, it has compounded the challenges of keeping Marshallese folk traditions alive.

" Our history is passed down through music and chants. - Daniel Kramer, Marshallese music producer

Between 1946 and 1958, nearly 20 years before Abon was born, the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear devices in the Marshall Islands that had a cumulative radioactive yield of more than 7,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Radioactive fallout from the tests devastated people's health and was later documented to have caused an elevated incidence of thyroid disorders. First reported in the country in 1961, these disorders have afflicted at least 1,500 Marshallese who were alive during the testing period.

In Abon's case, he developed a balloon-like nodule in his throat. Doctors surgically removed the cancerous growth, but his voice never fully came back.

Today, his music survives only on a few of Majuro's radio stations and in stereos of taxis that putter along the city's only road.

"He was, to me, one of the best contemporary artists that bridged the past to the future," said Majuro-based music producer Daniel Kramer. "It affected him during the height of his creativity in music."

The Republic of the Marshall Islands consists of 29 atolls spread over 750,000 square miles, and in this once-remote part of the Pacific, radiation and cancer are hardly the only threats to the islands' traditional arts. As is true elsewhere, a younger generation of Marshall Islanders has shunned the songs of their parents and embraced more modern sounds.

Historically, the Marshallese performed through chanting, stamping and body percussion. Sometimes the singing was accompanied by the playing of shell trumpets, hourglass drums and concussion sticks. Storytelling was crucial. Composers, it is said, wrote tunes with help from ancestors and supernatural beings.

Yet the nuclear tests helped unravel the cultural fabric of the Marshallese, which had already been frayed by centuries of Spanish and German colonial rule, Japanese annexation in 1914 and then the era of U.S. domination.

The traditional songwriting "has not only changed, but it is dying," said Abacca Anjain-Maddison, a former senator of the Marshall Islands. "We don't see composers anymore."

Kramer, the music producer, said: "You have an older generation that was unable to pass down what it could if it was at its full potential. If even one or two of its talented artists are affected, it has a big impact on a small community."

" Sometimes I wonder why all the people in the U.S. are not aware of what their government has done to these tiny islands. - Justina Langidrik, 67, musician

One of these artists is Tarines Abon, 75, who continues to write songs and train choirs despite past treatments for stomach cancer and a thyroid tumor his doctors are now watching. When a Times photographer visited him at his Majuro home in May, Abon, no relation to Carlton Abon, struggled to reach some of the higher notes he was singing. By way of explanation, he pointed to his throat.

Another artist is Justina Langidrik, 67, who sang as a soprano with the United Church of Christ choir in Majuro until doctors diagnosed her with thyroid cancer in 1984. The physicians removed Langidrik's thyroid, taking away her singing voice, which she only partially regained a few years later. Today, when her health permits, she tries to teach her songs to young choristers.

"There was a time when I used to think that I am just someone who was affected," she said. "But I am a survivor. I am a survivor."

Langidrik's speech is soft, and she keeps her graying hair tucked in a traditional floral headdress. A senior public servant, she has represented the Marshall Islands at various United Nations forums, trying to raise awareness of her country's environmental challenges.

"Sometimes I wonder why all the people in the U.S. are not aware," she said, "of what their government has done to these tiny islands."

On the morning of March 1, 1954, the U.S. tested a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the north of the Marshall Islands. Called the Castle Bravo test, it was the largest detonation the United States has ever carried out.

The explosion kicked up a mushroom cloud of fire more than 13 times as high as Mt. Baldy. Winds carried the fallout to neighboring atolls, including Rongelap, where people thought the ash falling from the sky was snow. As they came in contact with the debris, many started vomiting and experienced skin burns and other symptoms of radiation sickness. They were evacuated two days later. Within a week, U.S. officials initiated a top-secret program called Project 4.1, designed to study radiation exposure among the Marshallese.

In recent decades, several researchers have documented how Project 4.1 scientists intentionally exposed Marshallese to radiation, then studied them for research purposes.

"The project was initiated with mixed motives," said Barton Hacker, the author of the 1994 book "Elements of Controversy," which chronicles the intentional exposure of islanders. "It was primarily to help but also for political and military purposes."

In 1957, just three years after the detonation, American scientists declared Rongelap safe and allowed its residents to return to their homes. This is when more and more Marshall Islanders became sick from radiation poisoning and young children were stricken with thyroid cancers, an affliction they had rarely experienced.

In 1964, three teenage girls living in the atoll were diagnosed with thyroid nodules. The North Carolina radiobiologist Ulrich Behling, in his 2007 report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote that by 1974, 17 of 19 children exposed before age 10 on Rongelap were diagnosed with thyroid lesions. Behling, like many other scholars, believes American scientists were fully aware of the risks if Rongelapese were allowed to return, but they let it happen for future research purposes. "There was plenty of evidence to suggest that people were intentionally exposed," he said.

Along with letting Marshallese come in contact with radiation, U.S. scientists and doctors conducted experiments on island residents.

During Project 4.1's first three decades, American doctors operated on as many as 117 Marshallese thyroid patients, paying them a total of $3 million in exchange for consenting to the surgeries. Nearly one-fourth of these people were previously considered unexposed, and many did not need the destructive surgeries.

One consequence: hypothyroidism, in which the gland cannot produce enough thyroid hormone, slowing people's metabolisms.

"A lot of people got hypothyroidism from these surgeries," said Dr. Neal Palafox, a former head of the Department of Energy's health program in the Marshall Islands. Even though thyroid cancer is among the most successfully treated of the cancers, those stricken received aggressive surgeries and little to no post-surgery rehabilitation and therapy, leaving many with permanent vocal disabilities.

In 1988, the Marshallese government formed a nuclear claims tribunal with American funding to pay damages to radiation victims and those who continued to suffer post-treatment. But the United States never adequately financed the tribunal, and by 2006, its funding had started to dry up. By then, the tribunal had paid $91.4 million to 1,999 of those injured, nearly two-thirds of whom had thyroid diseases.

" If we were guinea pigs then, why can't we be guinea pigs now? - Adele Pinho, mother of Christian deBrum

Today, cancer patients approach the tribunal, on average, every other day. Its two remaining employees, Cathy Wakefield and Emma Gulibert, are tasked with explaining to their distressed compatriots why they cannot help anymore. "They ask why are you still here? Who pays your salary?" Wakefield said.

Among their distressed compatriots is Adele Pinho, mother of 11-year-old Christian deBrum, a patient with hypothyroidism in Majuro. Christian needs a $3 pill every day and a trip to Hawaii for a checkup every year. Pinho, a single mother of two, works at the Air Marshall Islands airline during the day and in the evening tends bar at Robert Reimers, one of only two hotels in the city, to ensure the treatment happens without fail.

Christian was born with the condition 13 years after American scientists had declared that thyroid cancers were no longer a problem in the Marshall Islands. "If we were guinea pigs then, why can't we be guinea pigs now?" she asks sarcastically.

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck that uses iodine to produce hormones that convert food to energy. When radioactive iodine enters the body, it concentrates in the thyroid gland and begins to destroy it. An altered voice is an early symptom.

In the summer of 2000, the British rock icon Rod Stewart lost his voice altogether after receiving surgery for thyroid cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. After nine months of medical care and vocal rehabilitation, he could sing once again, albeit in a lower octave. Four years later, he won his first Grammy.

Artists in the Marshall Islands have not been as lucky.

How radiation affects the thyroid

The thyroid, when it is functioning well, uses iodine to produce hormones, which regulate the conversion of food to energy. When radioactive iodine enters the body, it destroys normal hormone production, resulting in cancerous tumors and disorders that affect the vocal cords.

Hear the difference

Carlton Abon, 40, had a promising singing career until he developed a cancerous nodule in his thyroid. By 2016, his singing voice was transformed into a strained rasp. It can be heard in a recent recording of the folk song "Ilju Ne Am" (Your Future).

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Cases of Marshallese musicians losing their voices first came to light with the illnesses of composer Lijon Eknilang and artist-activist Almira Matayoshi, both now deceased.

Eknilang was 8 when Castle Bravo went off in Bikini. She was staying at her grandmother's on the nearby Ailinginae Atoll. She later wrote a song that recalled that morning: "I was scared and woke up crying / I couldn't see because of the tears in my eyes."

U.S. government doctors, who referred to their human subjects by serial numbers and not names, removed Eknilang's thyroid gland. Eknilang was called No. 53. The surgery left her with a permanent vocal injury. Throughout her career, she wrote songs about American apathy and the horrors of radiation.

"Will I ever stop taking pills? Aspirin, calcium, gout medicine, medicine for thyroid / Will these pills damage my kidneys, my brain, my heart?" she asked in a song, years before she died in 2012.

Matayoshi was also in nearby Rongelap when the bomb went off. She later gave birth to six stillborn, deformed babies and also received thyroid surgery, but she continued to perform.

As an activist and performer, she would recount how people would bully her and other singers for being unable to harmonize. They were called ri-baam - people of the bomb.

"She had a brave heart and stood up for her community," Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi said of his mother, who died of bladder cancer in 2005.

Thousands of miles separate the United States from the Marshall Islands, yet the two nations remain bound by legacies of the Atomic Age. For many Marshallese, the United States is home to a government that betrayed them but also a country that beckons with opportunity. About 30,000 Marshallese now live in the United States, many of them migrating to states such as Arkansas and Hawaii after Congress approved a 1986 compact that allows them to live and work here without a U.S. visa.

At the same time, the U.S. military continues to use the Marshall Islands as a remote testing location. The U.S. Army operates rocket launches on Kwajalein Atoll - part of the secretive Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, which covers 750,000 square miles, an area nearly five times larger than California.

The Kwajalein base is home to 2,500 permanent residents, most of whom are government contractors and their dependents. The base is an oasis of manicured lawns and swaying palm trees and is far different from the sandbar island that connects to it by ferry. That island, Ebeye, is a slum occupied by more people than it can shelter.

Rudh Johnson, 59, lives among this labyrinth of abandoned concrete structures and mounds of rubble. Once a respected member of the United Church of Christ choir in Ebeye, Johnson was treated for thyroid cancer long ago.

"Before the surgery I was a good singer, but not anymore," she said. Three of Johnson's fellow singers live on the densely populated island and have similar stories to tell. All three have scars on their necks.

A short walk from Johnson's tiny cabin lives perhaps the most popular couple of Ebeye - Telphina Jelke and Claudeo Jeadrik. Jelke used to sing in school, and that's where Jeadrik, also a singer, heard her for the first time and courted her. They fell in love and married in 1973.

Doctors diagnosed both of them with thyroid complications - Jelke received surgery in Hawaii, but Jeadrik couldn't. Their voices are damaged, but they still sing biblical hymns together, unconcerned about how they sound.

Some of the couple's children, and nearly half of the Marshallese in the United States, have put down roots in Springdale, Ark., where many work in the local meat-processing industry. It's a working-class town where island immigrants have found jobs and homes and put their kids through school.

One tie that binds is KMRW-FM, the Springdale radio station that keeps alive the traditional music and language of the islands. "The station brings the entire community together through music they grew up listening to," said Larry Muller, a retired seaman who started KMRW in 2015.

But along with bringing their culture to Arkansas, some old-timers have brought radiation sicknesses.

Neisen Laukon, 66, grew up in Rongelap when exposures to radioactivity were at their peak. Her father, Rongelap's paramount chief, helped his people evacuate the atoll in 1985. She has had recurring health issues all her life, including problems with her thyroid.

It's also possible she passed on her condition to her offspring.

Her daughter Faith Laukon, 43, was born and raised in Missouri and never lived on the affected atolls. Yet she has hypothyroidism.

In 2000, the Marshall Islands asked the United States for additional funding to pay damages to victims and continue treatment and assessment. Congress directed the National Cancer Institute to share its expertise. On deadline, officials presented a brief report in 2004 that stated that 56% of the 530 expected excess cancers had not yet shown up in the Marshallese population.

Alarmingly, the report said 40% of thyroid cancers were also yet to manifest, going against previous claims of American scientists that thyroid cancers were no longer a worry. Most important, it admitted for the first time that the entirety of the Marshall Islands was affected by the testing, not just a few atolls. "The 2004 report embarrassed the U.S. government," said Palafox, the former head of the Department of Energy health program, who also testified before Congress.

Snapshot of thyroid cancers in the Marshall Islands

Starting 61 years ago, hundreds of Marshallese were exposed to radioactive fallout from U.S. nuclear weapons testing. Many developed cancers. The majority were diagnosed with thyroid cancer, often resulting in damage to their vocal cords and other medical problems.

Below is a snapshot of Marshallese stricken by cancers who agreed to participate in an informal survey conducted by the Marshall Islands health department. It is unknown precisely how many Marshallese developed cancers.

*Diagnosed with cancer, but died of other causes

These records were collected by local health authorities in the Marshall Islands and reflect a subset of islanders who developed cancers during and after U.S. nuclear weapons testing. These results have not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal. They represent an attempt by Marshallese to document illnesses absent sustained epidemiological surveys by U.S. authorities or other international researchers.

Marshall Islands Ministry of Health

Despite the report, Congress turned down the Marshallese request because it did not deem the new revelations to be "extraordinary circumstances," as stated in the Compact of Free Association between the two countries. The cancer institute continued the study and published it in 2010, this time significantly reducing the number of excess cancers to 170.

Experts agree: If there was ever a time to conduct an independent and comprehensive cancer assessment in the Marshall Islands, it is now, because most cancers attributable to the nuclear testing would have shown up by now.

But until that happens, questions about cancer will linger. Early last year, Carlton Abon was flown to the Philippines for emergency treatment. He barely survived cardiac arrest.

As the rain poured down last autumn, he sat on the veranda of his house in Majuro, with a ukulele in his lap, dogs at his feet and a cup of kava - a traditional drink made from a native shrub - on a nearby table. Two close friends listened in silence. Abon was trying to recall the chord progression for one of his most popular tunes, "Ilju Ne Am" (Your Future).

The song is a bittersweet elegy that urges the youth of his land to seek answers. He hummed it in a breathy, gravelly voice, stopping to translate a key line:

"Between the musician and the politician, will there be a solution?"

He didn't have an answer.

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In Marshall Islands, radiation threatens tradition of handing down stories by song

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Thyroid cancers have afflicted some of the Marshall Islands' most beloved vocalists, and radiation exposure from U.S. nuclear testing is a key culprit.

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Video: In the Marshall Islands, folks singers are losing their voice, LA Times (2019)

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Video: In the Marshall Islands, folks singers are losing their voice, LA Times (2019)

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In the Marshall Islands, folk singers are losing their voice

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"Artists set sail for Marshall Islands on climate crisis expedition" The Art Newspaper (9 Aug 2023)

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"Artists set sail for Marshall Islands on climate crisis expedition" The Art Newspaper (9 Aug 2023)

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The Art Newspaper - International art news and events

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Artists set sail for Marshall Islands on climate crisis expedition

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Lisa Reihana is among the artists embarking on the odyssey, which will be followed by a film, book and exhibition

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National Toxic Land/Labor Conservation Service - a wishful agency

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National Toxic Land/Labor Conservation Service - a wishful agency

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National Toxic Land/Labor Conservation Service | a wishful agency

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Under the 'Nuclear Shadow' of Colorado's Rocky Flats

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Under the 'Nuclear Shadow' of Colorado's Rocky Flats

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Under The ‘Nuclear Shadow’ Of Colorado’s Rocky Flats

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Kristen Iversen spent her childhood in the 1960s in Colorado near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory, playing in fields that now appear to have been contaminated with plutonium. In Full Body Burden, she investigates the environmental scandal involving nuclear contamination around her childhood home.

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"Operation Greenrun II" interventionist public art, Rocky Flats, CO Nov 1990-April 1991

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"Operation Greenrun II" interventionist public art, Rocky Flats, CO Nov 1990-April 1991

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International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

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International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

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One movement. One goal. End Nuclear Weapons

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Global Nuclear Arsenals Revealed: Data from 1945 to 2024 (3:11)

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Global Nuclear Arsenals Revealed: Data from 1945 to 2024 (3:11)

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Global Nuclear Arsenals Revealed: Data from 1945 to 2024

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Case Study: The Yakama Nation and the Cleanup of Hanford: Contested Meanings of Environmental Remediation

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Case Study: The Yakama Nation and the Cleanup of Hanford: Contested Meanings of Environmental Remediation

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In 1988 the former Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington was designated a Superfund site, and the federal government assumed the responsibility to clean the area of contaminants and toxic waste and make it safe for human use. This case investigates the complex relationship of Native Americans to that cleanup effort. More specifically it looks at the role of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation in the cleanup process, and while doing so raises questions about environmental security, justice and ethics, contested concepts of the cleanup and its aftermath, and severe challenges regarding treaty rights and obligations.

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The Yakama Nation and the Cleanup of Hanford: Contested Meanings of Environmental Remediation

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In 1988 the former Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington was designated a Superfund site, and the federal government assumed the responsibility to clean the area of contaminants and toxic waste and make it safe for human use. This case investigates the complex relationship of Native Americans to that cleanup effort.

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Case Study: Blowing in the Wind: The Navajo Nation and Uranium

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Case Study: Blowing in the Wind: The Navajo Nation and Uranium

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Jovana J. Brown PhD and Lori Lambert PhD DS RN

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Blowing in the Wind: The Navajo Nation and Uranium

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The Navajo Nation was the site of extensive uranium mining and milling in the 1950’s through the 1980’s. This mining and milling has left a terrible legacy for the people and the land. Mine and mill workers were left with illness caused by radiation exposure. Many of these workers have since died. Abandoned mine and mill sites on the Navajo Nation continue to expose residents to harmful radiation. Water supplies have been contaminated. The Navajo Nation banned uranium mining in 2005. Yet the menace of new uranium mines in and immediately adjacent to Na

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Number of Nuclear Warheads by Country Timelapse (1945-2022) (5:17)

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Number of Nuclear Warheads by Country Timelapse (1945-2022) (5:17)

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Number of Nuclear Warheads by Country - TIMELAPSE (1945-2022)

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President Truman Announces Bombing of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)

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President Truman Announces Bombing of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)

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VT2008-9-2 President Truman Announces Bombing of Hiroshima

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President Truman Discusses Using the Atomic Bomb to Win World War II

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President Truman Discusses Using the Atomic Bomb to Win World War II

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MP2002-358 Former President Truman Discusses Using the Atomic Bomb to Win World War II

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Video: How US Nuclear Testing Continues to Haunt the Marshall Islands (2024) 

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Video: How US Nuclear Testing Continues to Haunt the Marshall Islands (2024) 

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US Nuclear Testing Continues to Haunt the Marshall Islands | Vice News

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A Brief History of Nuclear Weapons States from Asia Society

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A Brief History of Nuclear Weapons States from Asia Society

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The world's first nuclear weapons explosion on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico, when the United States tested its first nuclear bomb. Not three weeks later, the world changed.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It killed or wounded nearly 130,000 people. Three days later, the United States bombed Nagasaki. Of the 286,00 people living there at the time of the blast, 74,000 were killed and another 75,000 sustained severe injuries. Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945; it also resulted in the end of World War II.

In subsequent years, the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain conducted several nuclear weapons tests. In 1954, President Jawaharlal Nehru of India called for a ban on nuclear testing. It was the first large-scale initiative to ban using nuclear technology for mass destruction.

In 1958, nearly 10,000 scientists presented to United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold a petition that begged, "We deem it imperative that immediate action be taken to effect an international agreement to stop testing of all nuclear weapons."

France exploded its first nuclear device in 1960 and China entered the "nuclear arms club" in October 1964 when it conducted its first test.

The United States, Soviet Union and some sixty other countries signed a treaty to seek the ends of the nuclear arms race and promote disarmament on July 1, 1968. The treaty bars nuclear weapons states from propogating weapons to other states and prohibits states without nuclear weapons to develop or acquire nuclear arsenal. It permits the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely and unconditionally on May 11, 1995.

In 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test: a subterranean explosion of a nuclear device (not weapon). India declared it to be a "peaceful" test, but it announced to the world that India had the scientific know-how to build a bomb.

At this time, the five declared nuclear weapons states are the USA, USSR, UK, France and China.

In December, 1986, The South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone was put into effect.

American and North Korean delegations met in Geneva in autumn 1994 to establish a framework to resolve nuclear issues in the Korean peninsula. Under the agreement, North Korea would sign a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in exchange for U.S. support in building safe nuclear energy facilities and formal assurance against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. against North Korea. Both sides agreed to take steps towards better political and economic relations. In subsequent years, South Korea and Japan have invested billions to help build safe nuclear energy plants in North Korea. By 2003, North Korea has cancelled this and all other international agreements on non-proliferation.

The United Nations, on December 12, 1995, decreed an immediate ban on all nuclear testing and urged disarmament with the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Later that month, ten Southeast Asian countries signed the Bankok Treaty, establishing the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. In Spring 1996, 43 African nations sign the Pelindaba Treaty establishing the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.

On September 10, 1996, the United Nations, in a landslide vote, adopted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and two weeks later, the United States was the first to sign. (The U.S. Senate, however, rejected the treaty three years later.)

On May 11, 1998, India shocked the world by exploding three nuclear devices amounting to about six times the destructive power of the American bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The next day, it tested two more nuclear explosions. The world was stunned when Pakistan responded with six nuclear arsenal tests of its own.

World leaders admonished the two long-time adversaries in breaking the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (put into force in 1970). The U.S. imposed strict economic sanctions against both countries and lobbied for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other countries to do the same. The sanctions were lifted in 2001 when the U.S. needed Pakistan and India's support to fight al Qaeda and other terrorist cells in Afghanistan.

In 1998 North Korea alarmed Japan by test-firing a medium range-missile (without weapons) over the Japanese mainland. The missile's apparent range, some 1,000 kilometers or 600 miles, meant that any part of Japan-and by default any part of South Korea-was within range of North Korean weaponry. Japan is the only country ever to have been attacked by nuclear weapons and anti-nuclear sentiment runs particularly deep.

In 2002, American President George W. Bush named Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the Axis of Evil, in part due to U.S. suspicions of those countries having weapons of mass destruction. Later that year, unofficial reports suggest that North Korea has confirmed the existence of nuclear arsenals, and intelligence reports indicate that the dictatorial power will have enough plutonium to build five or six nuclear bombs by May 2003.

On October 9, 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon with the approximated power of the Hiroshima bomb. North Korea announced to the world that it has become the world's eighth declared nuclear weapons state. Its missiles have the range to hit targets in South Korea, Japan as well as U.S., Chinese, and Russian territories.

The United States is the only known country to have missles with range to attack any target on earth, but over thirty countries have unmanned planes that are undetected by missle defense systems, and can carry nuclear, biological or other weapons of mass destruction.

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A Brief History of Nuclear Weapons States

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The world's first nuclear weapons explosion on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico, when the United States tested its first nuclear bomb. Not three weeks later, the world changed. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It killed or wounded nearly 130,000 people.

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HOME | The Vow From Hiroshima | by Susan Strickler and Mitchie Takeuchi

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THE VOW FROM HIROSHIMA is an intimate portrait of Setsuko Thurlow, a passionate survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Her moving story is told through the lens of her growing friendship with a second-generation survivor, Mitchie Takeuchi.

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Working together for a nuclear-free world

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On July 7, 2017, the majority of the world's nations have voted at the UN to adopt a prohibition on nuclear weapons. For the first time in the history of the atomic age, nuclear weapons have been declared illegal.
READ MORE>>

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HIBAKUSHA STORIES PRESENTS a Toolkit and To-Do List for New Yorkers in the disarming of nuclear weapons WHO ARE THE HIBAKUSHA? Atomic Bomb survivors are referred to in Japanese as hibakusha, which translates literally as "bomb-affected-people". We highlight the gifts we

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Fukushima town lifts evacuation order, allowing residents to return 11 years after nuclear disaster (30 August 2022)

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Fukushima town lifts evacuation order, allowing residents to return 11 years after nuclear disaster (30 August 2022)

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Fukushima town lifts evacuation order, allowing former residents to return 11 years after nuclear disaster | CNN

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More than a decade after Japan’s worst nuclear disaster, the town that hosts the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant finally lifted its evacuation order on Tuesday, allowing former residents to come home.

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After the largest recorded earthquake in Japan set off a nuclear disaster, its people are facing a generation-defining moment as they question their lifestyle and dependency on nuclear power. In The Atomic Artists, FRONTLINE journeys with Marco Werman of PRI’s The World as he meets Chim↑Pom, a provocative group of young artists making headlines as they use art to challenge the status quo and ask Japanese society to rethink their way of life.

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Don't Follow the Wind | Radioactive Art in Fukushima

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Don't Follow the Wind | Radioactive Art in Fukushima

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Radioactive Art in Fukushima | Don’t Follow the Wind

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Venue: Inside the evacuated, radioactive exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant owned by TEPCO. Audio only.

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Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons signature and ratification status (Sept 2023)

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Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons signature and ratification status (Sept 2023)

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In a series of studies conducted in the Marshall Islands in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, K=1 Project researchers found that the effects of the United States’ nuclear weapons testing remain apparent more than sixty years after the bomb detonations ended in the atoll chain.

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Marshall Islands Radiological Studies (2017-2019) | K=1 Project

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This website contains information and registration forms for the Manhattan Project B Reactor Site Tour, located in Washington State.

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Three Mile Island nuclear plant will reopen to power Microsoft data centers

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Three Mile Island nuclear plant will reopen to power Microsoft data centers

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Three Mile Island nuclear plant will reopen to power Microsoft data centers

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Three Mile Island, the Pennsylvania power plant that was the scene of the worst commercial nuclear accident in American history, will reopen and sell power to Microsoft.

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Real Fukushima - guided tour by local residents

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Real Fukushima - guided tour by local residents

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We start a trial study tour to take people into Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station once every month to learn about the real site of the disaster and ongoing decommissioning process. Next available slots are April 26th (Fri) and May 27th (Mon). More details → click here.

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Three Mile Island: The Inside Story (Smithsonian)

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Three Mile Island: The Inside Story (Smithsonian)

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Three Mile Island: The Inside Story

America's worst accident at a civilian nuclear power plant occurred on March 28, 1979. Unbeknown to anyone, half the fuel melted in one of two nuclear reactors on Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa. Large quantities of radioactivity leaked from the reactor, but most of it was contained. In all probability, no one received a harmful amount of radiation. The enormous damage to the reactor was revealed only years later when TV cameras and a specially developed ultrasonic, sonar-like imaging system looked inside the reactor vessel.

In recognition of the 25th anniversary of this event, the National Museum of American History devoted its History-in-the-News display case during spring 2004, to the accident in Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power station (TMI-2). That exhibit featured the 1983 computer-controlled ultrasonic survey. It included the sonar probe and a precise topographic scale model of the upper third of the reactor's destroyed core that was prepared to present in visual form the numerical sonar data.

This Web site has been created in order to provide more information about the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant; about the course of the accident there; about the steps-extending over almost 15 years-through which the nature and extent of the damage were gradually revealed; and, especially, about the sonar survey, and the topographic maps and models that were prepared with the survey data, providing a full and detailed picture of the first and most astonishing discovery: a cavernous void in the core of the reactor, where once there had been a dense forest of fuel rods.

Continue to the Exhibit

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Three Mile Island: The Inside Story America's worst accident at a civilian nuclear power plant occurred on March 28, 1979. Unbeknown to anyone, half the fuel melted in one of two nuclear reactors on Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa. Large quantities of radioactivity leaked from the reactor, but most of it was contained.

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"How Nuclear Testing Transformed the Land in Nevada and New Mexico" Hyperallergic (19 Oct 2018)

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"How Nuclear Testing Transformed the Land in Nevada and New Mexico" Hyperallergic (19 Oct 2018)

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RENO, Nevada - The world's first nuclear weapons explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico. Three weeks later, the world changed when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The power of nuclear weapons is typically evaluated by their human devastation, and not by the American landscape shaped by its testing. In the exhibition The Nuclear Landscape at the Nevada Museum of Art, artists document, imagine, and investigate how the testing sites of Nevada and New Mexico scar our soil and harass romantic images of the American West.

The tilted orientation of Emmet Gowin's aerial photograph "Subsidence Craters on Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site" (1997) feels spontaneously captured, like he discovered a strange land. However, the Yucca Flat is a Nevada desert drainage basin where 739 nuclear tests were carried out, making it the most irradiated nuclear-blasted spot on Earth, about an hour from Las Vegas. One hundred nuclear tests were conducted before 1963, when the Soviet Union and the United States signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), which prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in space, bringing an end to above-ground tests. The subsidence craters that scar the soil mimic crop circles but are the result of underground blasts. Explosives were inserted in shafts 300 to 1,600 feet below the ground and their detonations caused the Earth's surface to sink from the void created by liquefied rock. Who needs Ancient Aliens on the History Channel or other conspiracy theories when science is more shocking?

Artist Peter Goin gained access to the nuclear test sites by foot in the series Nuclear Landscapes, the Nevada Test Site, 1985-1991. The most alarming photograph is "Accelerated Erosion" in which the soil appears to boil and freeze simultaneously. Rolling clouds make shadows on the distant foothills, which are walled-off from the cracking earth by a line of sage brush. The bizarre and beautiful image echoes Jack Malotte's watercolor painting "The End" (1983), which depicts the government's nuclear testing on Shoshone ancestral lands, challenging memories of the American frontier. There is no better example of the government's abusive relationship with the environment than destroying stolen land.

The diverse photographic series of mushroom clouds, 100 Suns by Michael Light, orbits a gallery wall. Some clouds have spiky trunks and others have elegant candlestick stems. One has a blistering cap and the next is embraced by smooth, smoky rings. The violent and graceful forms are expanded in the painted series, Proof (2017) by Nevada artist Rachel Stiff; each shifting cloud shape is the result of a different alchemy.

What is achieved by making art about scientific experiments? Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer argued in "Truth and Method" (2004) that art is more than an aesthetic experience, that real knowledge can be gained:

Does not the experience of art contain a claim to truth which is certainly different from that of science, but just as certainly is not inferior to it? And is not the task of aesthetics precisely to ground the fact that the experience of art is a mode of knowledge of a unique kind...?

The Nuclear Landscape was developed as part of the NV STEAM Conference in partnership with the Desert Research Institute's Science Alive program to explore educational practices in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Marisa Cooper, Education Director at the Nevada Museum of Art, stated in an email to Hyperallergic: "We wanted to show how art could serve as a window into complex issues, like Nevada's relationship to nuclear testing, nuclear power, and nuclear waste storage."

Images of the nuclear landscape do not only document a problem of the past. The soil may be unstable but it is not dead. Artist Chris Drury found microscopic soil bacteria known as Microcoleus vaginatus living in the Nevada Test Site. Drury painted the partial DNA gene sequence of the bacteria on the gallery wall with dirt from the test site, prompting questions about the risks of radiation to genetic mutation. It is a worthwhile reminder that something which seems isolated for lives outside Nevada and New Mexico can migrate through the land and air, scientifically or politically.

Art has often responded to emergencies and by doing so found hope for solutions. According to Cooper, educators have said that the exhibition opened a dialogue with students that was previously avoided. Still, this exhibition recalls and reevaluates the history that predicated our contemporary political conversation about nuclear warfare. The nuclear bomb is a strange symbol of American authority, often treated as if it occurred organically. But every empire's claim to power eventually fades with the ravaged land as is its only relic.

The Nuclear Landscape continues at the Nevada Museum of Art (160 West Liberty Street, Reno, NV) through October 28.

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How Nuclear Testing Transformed the Land in Nevada and New Mexico

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Artists document, imagine, and investigate how the testing sites of Nevada and New Mexico scar our soil and harass romantic images of the American West.

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Naoko Wake Collection of Oral Histories of US Survivors of the Atomic Bombs, Densho Digital Repository

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Naoko Wake Collection of Oral Histories of US Survivors of the Atomic Bombs, Densho Digital Repository

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Atomic Veterans and Downwinders Compensation Program

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Atomic Veterans and Downwinders Compensation Program

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The legacy of the Cold War era extends to impact individual lives today. The Atomic Veterans and Downwinders Compensation Programs stand as a belated yet crucial acknowledgment of this impact.

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National Cancer Benefits Center - Downwinders

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Atomic Veterans and the Downwinders Compensation Program - National Cancer Benefits Center - Downwinders

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The Atomic Veterans and the Downwinders Compensation Program acknowledge the sacrifices of military personnel who were part of nuclear tests.

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A former Senate staffer and expert on the US nuclear program looks back at its harmful effects, and how the government addressed them—or didn't.

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As efforts to compensate victims of US nuclear weapons tests continue, a former Senate staffer and expert on the US nuclear program looks back at their harmful effects, and how the government addressed them—or didn’t.

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Ashes of Death: the Marshall Islands is Still Seeking Justice for the US Nuclear Tests

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Ashes of Death: the Marshall Islands is Still Seeking Justice for the US Nuclear Tests

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Seven decades after Castle Bravo, the United States’ most devastating nuclear test, it’s time to give the nation fair compensation

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On March 1, 1954, a blinding flash of light in the west made it seem as though the sun was rising from the wrong side of the ocean. The sky and the sea turned red as a mushroom cloud swelled rapidly to a height of nearly 25 miles. Ash, water, and pulverized coral rained down. The people of Rongelap Atoll began to suffer from severe burns, nausea, and vomiting - symptoms of acute radiation sickness.

On March 1, 2024, as every year, Marshallese flags will be flown at half-staff in remembrance of victims and survivors of nuclear testing.

The United States subjected the Marshallese people to scientific study without their consent; destroyed their health and their environment; lied to them about their radiation exposure; evacuated them too late, or not at all; knowingly resettled them on contaminated land; and displaced them - often indefinitely - from their homes.
Lies, Broken Promises, and Human Experimentation
But it wasn't Bravo's magnitude alone that made it dangerous; it was the actions and inactions of the U.S. government. The United States hadn't evacuated atolls near the test site - the closest, Rongelap and Ailinginae, were less than 100 miles away. Children played in the radioactive ashfall, not knowing what it was. No one but U.S. personnel had been warned about the test. Radioactive particles reached other inhabited atolls including Ailuk, Likiep, and Utirik.

The U.S. military waited until March 3 to evacuate Rongelap and Ailinginae, and until the day after to evacuate Utirik. By then, many Marshallese were sick from radiation . The United States later blamed shifting winds for fallout east of Bikini, but the U.S. military knew the winds changed hours before the test and still failed to make swift evacuations. Hundreds of people living on Ailuk and Likiep were never evacuated , even though U.S. ships were close enough to help.

Then the U.S. government lied about the danger. Radioactive material had fallen on a nearby Japanese fishing vessel, and when the crew returned home with acute radiation sickness, the world learned of Bravo and the " ashes of death " it had unleashed. The word "fallout" was born, and with it an international campaign against nuclear testing. In response, the erstwhile U.S. Atomic Energy Commission claimed that only three islands besides Bikini were contaminated. But the U.S. government knew that more than a dozen atolls had received significant radiation from Bravo, according to documents declassified in 1994.

The immediate and long-term health effects were catastrophic. U.S. officials claimed that the people of Rongelap showed no signs of exposure, despite visible burns, lesions, and hair loss . Rongelapese women suffered miscarriages and stillbirths , and " jellyfish babies " were born without bones. One third of Rongelapese developed thyroid abnormalities , and 90 percent of Rongelapese children developed thyroid tumors . A U.S. medical program was established for Rongelap and Utirik, but thousands of Marshallese from other islands affected by Bravo and later tests remain ineligible because the United States hasn't acknowledged the range or severity of the fallout.

During that time, the U.S. government purposefully resettled islanders on contaminated atolls. In 1956, Atomic Energy Commission director of health and safety Merril Eisenbud called Rongelap " by far the most contaminated place in the world ." He therefore recommended sending the Rongelapese people back in order to study their uptake of radiation, which he justified by describing them as uncivilized and comparing them to "mice." In 1957, the U.S. government proceeded to resettle Rongelap , promising that it was safe, in what one U.S. official later called . Bikini was likewise resettled and then re-evacuated in the 1970s after Bikinians had ingested high levels of radiation.
U.S. Policy Must Change
Like the sun rising in the west, U.S. policy toward the Marshall Islands is backwards.

The United States' domestic policies also demonstrate that $600 million is inadequate. Over has been given to American nuclear-affected communities - and it's not enough, but it is far more than the Marshallese have received. Last year the U.S. government even expanded nuclear compensation to Guam , over 1,000 miles from Bikini, while continuing to dismiss Marshallese negotiators.

The disparity is all the more glaring because the Marshallese were exposed to exponentially more powerful weapons than the U.S. population. The United States conducted over 1,000 nuclear tests during the Cold War, and less than 7 percent were in the Marshall Islands, but those produced 59 percent of the megatonnage of all U.S. nuclear tests .

The Marshall Islands has a special relationship with the United States under the COFA. It receives U.S. programs and services, gives the U.S. military exclusive operating rights in its islands, airspace, and territorial waters, and its citizens enlist in the U.S. military at a higher per capita rate than any U.S. state. Marshallese deserve more from the U.S. government.

Others says the U.S. government won't apologize because nuclear testing strengthened national security, but this just underscores how much the United States owes the Marshall Islands. Nuclear testing wasn't for the good of mankind, but for U.S. strategic interests: building its nuclear arsenal, maintaining its Cold War security doctrine, and propelling it to superpower status. In other words, nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands paid for American security. Bravo itself illustrates this: the test allowed the United States to catch up with the Soviet Union , which in 1953 had built a hydrogen bomb deliverable by airplane.

After Bravo, the Marshallese people petitioned the United Nations to halt nuclear testing because of the overwhelming harm to their health and islands, but their requests were denied. Marshallese leaders continued fighting back, from Tony deBrum , who witnessed Bravo as a child and campaigned against nuclear proliferation as foreign minister, to Darlene Keju , a public health worker, educator, and advocate for survivors of nuclear testing. Both have passed away, but they are followed by a new generation of Marshallese leaders fighting for nuclear justice .

As Bravo's 70th anniversary dawns, it's time for Washington to finally make things right. The Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission stated in 2019 : "We know we will obtain nuclear justice when the health of the Marshallese people and our islands is restored, when displaced communities are returned to or compensated for their homelands, when the full range of damages and injuries stemming from the program is acknowledged and compensated by the U.S. government." Nuclear justice is long overdue.

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u.s. nuclear legacy in the marshall islands

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'Ashes of Death': The Marshall Islands Is Still Seeking Justice for US Nuclear Tests

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Seven decades after Castle Bravo, the United States' most devastating nuclear test, it's time to give the nation fair compensation.

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HD Stock Footage 'Hiroshima Maidens' Depart For Japan

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AIM - Enana - We Are Not Alone - Nuclear Victims Tribute Song

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AIM - Enana - We Are Not Alone - Nuclear Victims Tribute Song

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The College of the Marshall Island's Nuclear Club

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The Power of Words is an educational campaign to understand language euphemisms used to describe the Japanese American World War II experience and the preferred terminology that more accurately describes the dire realities of the experience. Members of the Power of Words committee prepared a draft h…

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Nuclear Victims Tribute Song | MARK Harmony - Oh Sweet Marshall Islands

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Nuclear Victims Tribute Song | MARK Harmony - Oh Sweet Marshall Islands

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Nuclear Victims Tribute Song | Mark Harmony - Oh Sweet Marshall Islands

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Roger Shimomura Smashes Stereotypes with Art (2015)

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Roger Shimomura Smashes Stereotypes with Art (2015)

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Roger Shimomura Smashes Stereotypes With Art

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Roger Shimomura wasn’t even three years old when he and his family were sent to the Puyallup Assembly Center in 1942. He celebrated his third birthday…

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Yukiyo Kawano - Exploring the legacy of the atomic age through creative arts

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Yukiyo Kawano - Exploring the legacy of the atomic age through creative arts

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Nuclear Futures » Exposing the legacy of the atomic age through creative arts » Yukiyo Kawano

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A third generation hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) from Hiroshima, visual artist Yukiyo Kawano re-evaluates her own condition as part of a diaspora. Her process of dissembling the known (decipherable) history locates Kawano’s work somewhere in between language and the memories of place. Since 2011, she has been creating life-size renditions of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kawano builds the sculptures by using strands of her hair to stitch together old kimonos of women in Hiroshima. Profoundly influenced by her personal and family history, she writes, “Perhaps within and among a discourse of grandmothers’ anecdotes might draw myself out from the context of the historical condition”.

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"Phantom Zero" installation by Nakahashi Katsushige: Part 1 of 5 at Smith College (2012)

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"Phantom Zero" installation by Nakahashi Katsushige: Part 1 of 5 at Smith College (2012)

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"Phantom Zero" Installation by Artist Nakahashi Katsushige: Part 1 of 5

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Video: Echo at Satsop by Etsuko Ichikawa (2014)

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Video: Echo at Satsop by Etsuko Ichikawa (2014)

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The making of this short film ‘Echo at Satsop’ began with director/producer Ichikawa’s response to the triple disaster that occurred in her home country of Japan on March 11, 2011, when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit the country, causing a massive tsunami that led to the collapse of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Tragically, due to ongoing radiation leakage, it’s devastating impact on the people and environment around it will continue for years to come.

Prompted by the tragedies, Ichikawa and her crew were granted access to the abandoned Satsop nuclear facility in southern Washington (in the U.S.) where they captured all of the video and sound used in the making of this film. Ichikawa was inspired by the emotional juxtaposition between ethereality and fear that she experienced while being in the cooling tower, as well as by the amazing acoustic property of the space. The sound created by simply clapping hands becomes an emotional experience within the tower where Ichikawa’s act of prayer and purification are captured.

©2013 ETSUKO ICHIKAWA
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This film received the grand prize from Dave Bown Projects in 2016. 
Press Release:
http://davebownprojects.com/12th_semiannual_competition_press_release.html 

Quotes from the jurors:
"The work that most stood out to me in this group of submissions was Etsuko Ichikawa's video Echo at Satsop. With the decommissioned Satsop nuclear facility as a powerful stage set and protagonist, Ichikawa creates stunning visuals that evoke a haunting mix of fear and poetry."  — Irene Hofmann, Director and Chief Curator, SITE Santa Fe

“Equal parts performance documentation and otherworldly cinematic experience the mesmerizing video Echo at Satsop by Etsuko Ichikawa reveals the dramatic potential of a simple gesture made in an extraordinary setting. I was not only struck by the professional and creative cinematography, but also by the powerful soundtrack. Nearly every shot would make a compelling still image; the meditative sound could also stand alone. Both contribute to a sense that this clearly real place could be on earth or elsewhere — in the past, present, or far-off future.” — Al Miner, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Producer and Director
ETSUKO ICHIKAWA

Cinematographer
IAN LUCERO

Sound Engineer
TOM STILES

Editors
IAN LUCERO
ETSUKO ICHIKAWA

Woodworker
LEN CULLUM

Production Assistant
REILLY SINANAN

Set Photographers
SEAN FREGO
LINCOLN POTTER

Supported by 
JACK STRAW PRODUCTIONS
4CULTURE

Special Thanks To
MICHAEL BARRETTE
KAMALA DOLPHIN-KINGSLEY
SUSIE KOZAWA
GREGOR MIZIUMSKI
MAYUMI TERAO POTTER
ROSS READ
JUNKO YAMAMOTO

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MARK Harmony sings about intergenerational trauma

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MARK Harmony sings about intergenerational trauma

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3.4K views · 119 reactions | Marshallese Band Sings About Intergenerational Trauma & Displacement | These beautiful harmonies and powerful lyrics from our cousins in the Marshall Islands are a prime example of music as a tool for both healing, and... | By Mana Maoli | Facebook

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These beautiful harmonies and powerful lyrics from our cousins in the Marshall Islands are a prime example of music as a tool for both healing, and...

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Satsop, WA 'This mothballed nuke plant is Washington's weirdest movie set' King 5 (2018)

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Satsop, WA 'This mothballed nuke plant is Washington's weirdest movie set' King 5 (2018)

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Inside Grays Harbor County's Satsop Nuclear Power Plant: chill in Cooling Tower 5 - It's Abandoned. #k5evening

ELMA, Wash. - Looming 496 feet over the forests of Grays Harbor County is a strange sight.

This shuttered nuclear power plant is Nathan Hoover's office.

"You know it doesn't," he said when asked if reporting to work at a closed nuke plant ever gets old. "It's unique in the way that there are probably only a couple of these in the world - reactor buildings that you can actually access."

In 1983 - drowning in debt - the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant was mothballed before it could even open for business.

Tearing it down would have been too expensive so it still stands today - in all of its post-apocalyptic glory. The plant's two cooling towers are clearly visible from Highway 8 as it passes Elma. What you can't see from the highway is the thriving complex of office buildings located at the base of the towers. The power plant part might be defunct, but don't be fooled. This place is open for business.

"It's not abandoned, the site is owned and managed by the Port of Grays Harbor," said Alissa Shay, manager of development for Satsop Business Park. "It's 1800 acres total and we manage it as a business park, so we have about 50 tenants here doing business. It's definitely very active."

Some of that action comes from Hollywood: Cooling Tower 3 was once taken over by a Decepticon in Transformers 5: The Last Knight.

And Mark Whalberg saved the day in Cooling Tower 5 in Transformers 4: Age of Extinction.

"They were here for weeks and it's like two seconds of the movie!" said Hoover, who is the project coordinator for the business park. He actually landed a walk-on role in one of the movies that shot at the plant.

A super thick concrete door - the portal to the reactor core - also got a big part in one of the movies. Today, the super thick cement walls make it one of the world's quietest rooms, and a company actually does sound research and engineering inside what would have been a highly radioactive place had the plant gotten up and running.

It's a different sound story inside the vast towers: Stand in the middle, make noise... and the echo bounces endlessly up the cement walls. That unique audio property attracts recording artists and video game designers to the place.

This plant also draws the curious. There's no radiation here, the reactor core was never fueled. But many spots are off-limits for safety reasons.

But the roads are accessible to the public anytime. And the Port has walking tours that take visitors behind the scenes in spring and summer.

The Satsop Nuclear Plant never made electricity - but it remains a powerful presence.

"It can be eerie, it can be beautiful," said Shay. "It is definitely a unique setting to go to work in every day."
KING 5's Evening celebrates the Northwest. Contact us: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Email.

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This mothballed nuke plant is Washington's weirdest movie set - Beyond Abandoned

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Inside Grays Harbor County's Satsop Nuclear Power Plant: chill in Cooling Tower 5 - It's Abandoned. #k5evening ELMA, Wash. - Looming 496 feet over the forests of Grays Harbor County is a strange sight. This shuttered nuclear power plant is Nathan Hoover's office.

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Voices Rising

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Ground Zero 1945 - Drawings by Atomic Bomb Survivors, essay by John Dower

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Ground Zero 1945 - Drawings by Atomic Bomb Survivors, essay by John Dower

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For most Americans today, the words "Ground Zero" immediately call to mind the horror of September 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying two skyscrapers and killing some three-thousand individuals. As a place, Ground Zero thus refers to the dead center of an explosive act of violence. As a concept, these ominous words are inseparable from the terrifying vision of WMD-Weapons of Mass Destruction. What if the next Ground Zero involves nuclear weapons?

Prior to "9-11," Ground Zero did in fact have a concrete, historical, explicitly nuclear meaning. The phrase was coined in reference to the first nuclear weapons tested and used by the United States in 1945-the top-secret "Trinity" test in the desert of Alamagordo, New Mexico, in mid July 1945, and the atomic bombs dropped with devastating effect a few weeks later on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).

The historical monument that used to mark the epicenter of the Trinity test bore the simple legend Ground Zero. It is possible that the "zero" designation had its actual origin here, before the bombs were deployed against the two Japanese cities. By 1946, in any case, "ground zero" had become a media catch phrase referring to the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. Hiroshima and Nagasaki stood before the world as stark examples of what this really meant.

Japan surrendered on August 14 (August 15 Japan time)-eight days after Hiroshima, six days after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, five days after Nagasaki. These were the first atomic bombs ever actually used against an enemy population. To date, they are the last.

Most of this history-this genesis of an awesome, horrifying catch phrase-has been forgotten.

The American decision to deploy the new technology of nuclear destruction against densely populated cities will always remain controversial. Supporters of this decision-and, to the present day, this includes the great majority of Americans-argue that the bombs were necessary to end the war against a fanatical enemy quickly and save untold numbers of American lives. A well-known essay by the distinguished historian Paul Fussell succinctly captures this position in its title: "Thank God for the Atomic Bomb."

Critics of the decision to use the bombs argue that the Japanese government could have been persuaded to surrender by other policies-most notably, by (1) clarifying the U.S. terms of surrender (to make clear that Japan's imperial dynasty would be maintained), and (2) waiting for the imminent declaration of war against Japan by the Soviet Union (which the Japanese were known to be desperately trying to prevent).

This controversy will never be resolved but should never be ignored, for it raises practical and moral issues of the highest order. The debate over the use of the bombs in 1945 is inseparable from present-day controversies concerning just and unjust war. It involves an issue that has been with us since World War II and was abruptly thrown to the forefront of popular consciousness by 9-11: when, if ever, is it appropriate to identify civilians as a legitimate target of war?

That, however, is a subject in itself. This present treatment of "Ground Zero 1945" is more narrowly focused. It addresses what it was like to be present, on the ground, when nuclear weapons were actually used.

It is impossible to give precise figures for the victims of mass slaughter. We can only venture plausible estimates, for example, concerning how many tens of millions of people died worldwide in the course of World War II. This imprecision of numbers is also true with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

By the final year of the war, Japan was disintegrating. Malnutrition was widespread. City residents made constant trips to the countryside to barter for basic foodstuffs. Many urban women and children relocated with rural kin to escape terror bombing by the U.S. Army Air Force, which followed a massive air raid on Tokyo in March 1945 with a policy of systematically targeting urban centers. Troops and labor forces (often schoolboys and schoolgirls mobilized for factory work) were moved from place to place. Populations were in flux.

By the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in August 1945, over sixty Japanese cities had been targeted with "conventional" napalm fire-bombing. The nuclear destruction in the two cities was so extensive that entire neighborhoods were obliterated, often with few survivors (or paper records) to recall them.

The most careful and persuasive estimates suggest that somewhere in the neighborhood of 140,000 individuals probably died as a result of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. In Nagasaki, where the bomb exploded off-target, fatalities probably numbered around 70,000. (Both of these figures are roughly double the estimates commonly cited shortly after the war.)

Most of these deaths occurred immediately or by the end of 1945. By one standard calculation, 60 percent of the deaths came from burns, 20 percent from trauma from the blast, and 20 percent from radiation sickness. Many deaths, however, also took place between 1946 and 1950. Over the decades that followed, small numbers of survivors continued to die from bomb-related injuries or illnesses.

Despite the scale of these casualties, the visual record of them is comparatively sparse. The major U.S. survey team sent to assess the effects of the air war (the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey) produced thousands of photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that focused almost obsessively on damage to physical structures. Other American military and civilian photographers who worked in Japan in the immediate wake of the war also, as a general rule, shied away from human suffering.

Where the Japanese themselves were concerned, censorship by U.S. occupation authorities, who exercised control over defeated Japan from August 1945 to April 1952, resulted in a remarkable occurrence: the public had virtually no access to graphic images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki until seven years after the bombs were dropped. The magazine Asahi Gurafu broke the ice by publishing a portfolio of photographs in August 1952. That same year also saw belated publication of a somber record of the destruction in Nagasaki, taken on August 10, 1945, by Yamahata Yōsuke.

Although Japanese filmmakers produced several hours of black-and-white footage of the nuclear destruction in the weeks that followed, only a surprisingly small portion of this focused on human suffering. This footage was confiscated by the U.S. government and remained censored until the mid-1960s. (After being declassified, the most dramatic frames were privately edited as a short documentary titled Hiroshima Nagasaki, 1945.)

This averted gaze was as psychological as it was political. Few Japanese wished to dwell on the madness and misery of the war, and the hibakusha-the survivors of the atomic bombs-were essentially stigmatized or ignored until the late 1950s and early 1960s. It took two famous photographers to draw serious public attention and sympathy to them. Dōmon Ken published an influential study of Hiroshima hibakusha in 1957. Four years later he and Tōmatsu Shōmei collaborated on a volume depicting the nuclear legacy in the two stricken cities, and in 1966 Tōmatsu followed this with a truly distinguished collection of photographs titled Nagasaki "11:02 a.m." (the time the bomb exploded).

This time-warp is worth keeping in mind. It took until the 1960s before people in Japan (as well as outside) really began to see the human face of nuclear devastation. Even then, it was all too easy to avert one's gaze: these images were almost unbearable to look at.

Beginning in 1974-over a quarter century after the bombs were dropped-an entirely new window on the atomic-bomb experience was opened. This took the form of drawings and paintings by survivors.

Every August, it is customary for the Japanese media to observe the anniversary of the end of World War II with retrospective pieces. These include television documentaries and personal reminiscences in magazines and newspapers. The tone is somber, commonly focusing on the suffering and horror of war. More than is appreciated outside Japan, some of these observances also address Japanese atrocities and war crimes (there are numerous private institutions and organizations devoted to such "peace" activity in Japan). Unlike in the nations that emerged victorious in World War II, there is nothing to celebrate on this anniversary occasion. There is, on the contrary, a great deal of a cautionary nature to pass on to ever-younger generations.

In Hiroshima (more than in Nagasaki), August becomes an occasion for intensified reflection on the atomic bombs and agitation for nuclear disarmament-a tradition that dates back to the mid-1950s. The Peace Memorial Museum opened its doors in 1955, and the first Japanese anti-nuclear organizations emerged around the same time, initially on the political left. By the 1970s, the "peace movement" had become not only politicized but also highly factionalized.

This was the setting in which the hibakusha moved toward center stage to tell their personal stories by drawing or painting what they had experienced and witnessed in August 1945.

This was an unplanned development. It began in 1974, when a survivor visited the Hiroshima office of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) to give them a picture he had drawn of a scene from 1945 that still haunted him. This prompted NHK to solicit other such graphic recollections, and these became the basis for a television program and exhibition in Hiroshima in August 1975. Eventually, several thousand such pictures were collected and exhibited throughout the country.

These are the intimate images that have been drawn upon for this site. There is nothing like them. John Hersey, who introduced Americans to atomic-bomb survivors in a celebrated long essay in 1946 (issued in book form as Hiroshima), put his finger on the difference between these visuals and the more familiar photographs and film footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The pictures by hibakusha, he observed, are "more moving than any book of photographs of the horror could be, because what is registered is what has been burned into the minds of the survivors."

All images that follow have been provided
by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

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For most Americans today, the words "Ground Zero" immediately call to mind the horror of September 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying two skyscrapers and killing some three-thousand individuals. As a place, Ground Zero thus refers to the dead center of an explosive act of violence.

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Will Wilson - Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy (Portland Art Museum, 2016)

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Will Wilson - Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy (Portland Art Museum, 2016)

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Will Wilson - Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy

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Documentary: Downwinders and the Radioactive West (PBS, 2021)

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Documentary: Downwinders and the Radioactive West (PBS, 2021)

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Downwinders and the Radioactive West | PBS

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Post-war nuclear testing spread radiation far & wide. Its effects are still debated today.

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S. Res. 330 - January 27 - National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders

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S. Res. 330 - January 27 - National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders

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Ground Zero 1945: A Schoolboy's Story - A First-hand Account by Akihiro Takahashi, Illustrated by Goro Shikoku

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Ground Zero 1945: A Schoolboy's Story - A First-hand Account by Akihiro Takahashi, Illustrated by Goro Shikoku

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On viewing images of a potentiallydisturbing nature: click here.Massachusetts Institute of Technology© 2007 Visualizing Cultures

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Diné photographer and trans-customary artist

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This is a Talking Tintype of violinist Carla Kountoupes. Download the free LAYAR app on your smart device and scan the image to activate the embedded media.

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White Light/Black Rain (trailer) Using extensive interviews with survivors and archival footage, an examination reveals the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Documentary: White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007)

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Documentary: White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007)

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Hear first-hand accounts of the Manhattan Project Tour the Sites of the Manhattan Project Learn about the history of the Manhattan Project From our Archive Learn about some of the people who were a part of the Manhattan Project

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Nuclear Preparedness PSA from NYC Emergency Management (2022)

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Nuclear Preparedness PSA from NYC Emergency Management (2022)

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Nuclear Preparedness PSA (with captions)

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Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Scholsser (2013)

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Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Scholsser (2013)

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On 11 March 1958, in Mars Bluff, South Carolina, a man called Walter Gregg was building shelves in his shed with his son, when a Mark 6 atom bomb landed in his yard. Mrs Gregg was inside, sewing. The little Gregg girls were playing outside. The fissile core of the bomb had been removed for safer transit, but the explosives that powered it nonetheless blew the Gregg house to bits, killing half a dozen of the Gregg chickens. In military talk this sort of thing is known as a "broken arrow", an accident involving nuclear weapons that falls short of causing risk of war, and Schlosser's book is about the several dozens of these that have happened - counting only those of US origin - since the atomic bomb was invented in 1945. The next-up sort of accident is called a Nucflash. So far, it hasn't happened, but Schlosser considers this due as much to luck as anything else.

Around the time of the Mars Bluff "mishap", Peter George, a former RAF officer, published Red Alert, the novel that became the basis of Stanley Kubrick's great nuclear-deterrence satire, Dr Strangelove (1964). Both novel and movie concern the blackly entertaining efforts of politicians and military to get back the weapons launched on the Soviet Union by a mad American general, and highlighted two big real-life strategic problems. By the time Dr Strangelove came out, atomic weapons were designed for delivery not by plane but rocket, a matter of minutes after launching. There wouldn't be time for second thoughts or frantic horse-trading of the sort the fictional scenarios showed. Also, no "nuclear hotline" between the White House and the Kremlin even existed until 1963, after the Cuban missile crisis, during which top-level messages between Washington and Moscow had been delivered by bike.

Eric Schlosser is most famous for Fast Food Nation (2000). Like that book, his new one aims to "pierce a false sense of comfort", in this case the popular assumption that because all the talk at the moment is about Syria, drone strikes and chemical stockpiles, the threat of nuclear escalation has gone away for good. It hasn't, is Schlosser's miserable message. "They are out there, soulless and mechanical, sustained by our denial - and they work." In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser reported on the ways the food industry compromised hygiene and safety in pursuit of its profits. In this book, he's interested in how "the effort to control nuclear weapons - to ensure that one doesn't go off by accident" is undermined, over and over again, by demands from the military for bombs they can trust to explode. The conflict is partly one of "mindset" - military operatives are used to danger, and are comfortable taking risks that most people cannot live with. But mainly it's to do with how uniquely lethal nuclear weapons are, and the necessarily labyrinthine safety procedures that come with them - "the mixture of human fallibility and technological complexity that can lead to disaster", and sometimes does.

The story alternates between two main strands. One is a 70-year history of nuclear weapons in America, from the Manhattan project in the 1940s to the ending of the cold war. The other is a blow-by-blow account of one particular "mishap", at the Titan II silo near Damascus, Arkansas, in September 1980, when a dropped tool pierced a missile shell and caused a fuel leak - "Oh, man," as one of the maintenance men thought when he saw the stuff spraying out. "Oh, man. This is not good." That tiny slip might well have caused a nuclear detonation, and it was hours before people could be sure that it hadn't. As it turned out, the fuel leak resulted nevertheless in poisoned lungs and broken bones, ignominy, lawsuits, much bitterness and the death of one man, senior airman David L Livingston, described by Schlosser as "a 22-year-old missile repairman from Ohio with a fondness for motorcycles" and who is remembered by the colleagues who tried to rescue him as begging them not to tell his mother that he'd been hurt.

The Titan II, Schlosser tells us, was the largest intercontinental ballistic missile ever built by the US, 10ft in diameter and 103ft tall, with a nine-megaton thermo-nuclear warhead inside its black-painted nose-cone, "primed, cocked, ready to go". There were 18 of them dotted around rural Arkansas, "buried off back-country roads, near small farms and little towns". This particular one was sited at Launch Complex 374-7 in the foothills of the Ozark mountains, near the small town of Damascus. According to whistleblowing insiders cited by Schlosser, the missiles were known to be old and leaky, "a disaster waiting to happen". Personnel were known to be undertrained, overworked, and extremely young. The subject of what went wrong at Launch Complex 374-7 is returned to repeatedly, each time seen from a different perspective, each time with a further layer of mistakes and malfunctions picked up. It's a horrifying tale of bad design and carelessness and short-cutting, with a lot of dithering from the officers in the control centre and courage from the men on the ground. Clearly, it's a story that needs to be widely known.

I'm not convinced, however, that Schlosser has found the best way to tell it. The terrain, of course, is difficult - horrible weapons, dozens of characters, serial numbers, placenames, and all fogged by doubt and confusion and unattributability, as well as by the "cloud of white vapour ... like steam from a boiling kettle" pouring out of the bomb. Schlosser, it's obvious, has done a stupendous amount of research, talking to everybody, chasing up every note and file that can be read, and with 92 pages of notes at the end of the book to prove it - fascinating, a masterclass in itself as to how this sort of investigative work is done. And yet in some ways, this very exhaustiveness can become exhausting. The historical parts of the book, for example, are loaded with detail, but without many quotes to anchor them. This happens, I'd guess, because big-player sources have asked not to be quoted, but makes it difficult to follow the course of events.

The Damascus story is also laborious-going. The timeline keeps jumping forwards and backwards, from the accident in Complex 374-7 to another one that happened in 373-4, then back again to the first one, only now seen from somebody else's point of view. Schlosser's conclusions, on the other hand, are clear. Although the cold war is now more than 20 years over, the US still has an arsenal of 4,650 nuclear weapons, aimed at Russia, China, North Korea, Syria and Iran, with potential to swivel round at other enemies as they happen to pop up. Russia has about 1,500 "strategic" - ie long-range, intercontinental - missiles and maybe 2,000 "tactical" ones, which are the shorter-range weapons for use in what used to be called "the European theatre", in other words, us. We've got some, France has some, India and Pakistan aim theirs at each other, Israel keeps its collection secret and China hides its in "an underground Great Wall". Because they are so dreadfully dangerous, nuclear weapons generate particular politics around them - authoritarian, secretive, undemocratic. Even so, mistakes happen, and it's even possible that authoritarianism and secrecy make the problems worse. Nuclear weapons are not like Wikipedia, on which anybody can spot a mistake and write in.

And yes, it's true so far that "none of the roughly 70,000 nuclear weapons built by the US since 1945 has ever detonated inadvertently or without proper authorisation." But the US is an extremely rich, technologically sophisticated country, and as the inventor of nuclear weapons in the first place, the one furthest advanced in developing "the organisational skills and safety culture necessary to manage them". And even it, as Schlosser has shown, has only narrowly avoided nuclear disaster. "Other countries, with less hard-earned experience, may not be as fortunate."

One measure of a nation's technological proficiency, as Schlosser says, is its rate of industrial accidents - a topic explored to great effect in Fast Food Nation. "That rate is about two times higher in India, three times higher in Iran, and four times higher in Pakistan than it is in the United States." Across the world in the early 21st century, nuclear weapons have become "a symbol of power and source of national pride". But the threats they pose are as grave to the countries that possess them as they are to everybody else.

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Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser - review

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The Fast Food Nation author has spent years researching the shocking details of nuclear accidents and the 'illusion of safety' writes Jenny Turner

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Auto Immune Response South by Will Wilson

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Auto Immune Response South by Will Wilson

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The Auto Immune Response protagonist travels to Tsoodził, the turquoise mountain and southern boundary of Dinetah.

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Ground Zero 1945: Pictures by Atomic Bomb Survivors from MIT Visualizing Cultures

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Ground Zero 1945: Pictures by Atomic Bomb Survivors from MIT Visualizing Cultures

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Essentially, we remember grand and even cataclysmic events through one or a few emblematic fragments-a particular image or two that, in Hersey's phrase, burn into the mind and remain branded there. "This is the scene I can never forget," survivors say in explaining the particular subject of their artwork. The intensity of this carries over to most viewers of the picture in ways rarely replicated in the cooler, more detached medium of photography.

For these survivors, these amateur artists, the part contains the whole. For those of us who come to these pictures as outsiders, these many parts comprise an intricate mosaic of the human experience of nuclear devastation. The pictures remind us of the individuals who made up the huge number of casualties and fatalities that occurred at and around Ground Zero 1945.

We can perhaps best approach this mosaic by imagining August 6, 1945, from a distance, with a single American B-29 bomber, accompanied by two escort planes, releasing a parachute over Hiroshima.

Parachute dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; the bomb exploded over 500 meters above ground, maximizing burn and blast effects.

HARADA Haruo
10 years old in August 1945
[09_01]

The morning scene is serene. The parachute cradles "Little Boy," the first nuclear bomb, timed to explode between 500 to 600 meters above ground. Then comes the "mushroom cloud" as seen from the outskirts of the city. This is what impressed the crew of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb, as it turned away. It is the image with which most American narratives of the use of the bomb end.

The "mushroom-shaped" cloud from the bomb's explosion, seen from the outskirts of Hiroshima.

HORIKOSHI Susumu
6 years old in August 1945
[03_02]

When the bomb was tested in New Mexico in July 1945, an awed American observer described the explosion as "brighter than a thousand suns." In Japanese, the well-known phrase for the extraordinary light of the nuclear explosion, and the thunderous blast that followed, is pica-don-literally (and prosaically) "flash-bang."

"Pika-don," the blinding flash and massive explosion of the bomb.

YAMADA Sumako
20 years old in August 1945
[09_02]

The temperature at the center of the explosion was between 3,000 and 4,000 degrees Centigrade (5,400 to 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit); unshielded people suffered flash burns within a radius of 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles); all wooden structures within 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) were obliterated, and firestorms immediately began to sweep through these ruins.

KOJIRI Tsutomu
4 years old in August 1945 [06_33]

Downtown Hiroshima in ruins, as seen two weeks later.

Corpses lay everywhere. In many depictions by hibakusha, the dead are naked and bright red or coal black.

HAMADA Yoshi
26 years
old in
August
1945
[15_34]

Bomb victims at Kokuzenji temple.

Certain phrases run like a thread through the words of survivors. "It was like hell ( jigoku)" or "this is what hell must be like" is said over and over. Traditional Buddhist painting actually provided vivid depictions of hell as a place (much like Dante's Inferno) of raging fires, grotesque figures, unspeakable tortures and pain.

NAKANO Kenichi
47 years
old in
August
1945
[02_33]

Hiroshima in flames on the afternoon of August 6. The writing on the painting speaks of encountering "living Hell in this world."

For many survivors, the attempt to escape the firestorms that spread from the epicenters of the explosionsor the memory of someone who failed to escape these hellfires-became the image burned on the mind.

The artist and an injured girl attempting to escape "a sea of flames."

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Essentially, we remember grand and even cataclysmic events through one or a few emblematic fragments-a particular image or two that, in Hersey's phrase, burn into the mind and remain branded there. "This is the scene I can never forget," survivors say in explaining the particular subject of their artwork.

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The Way It Is: One Water...One Air...One Mother Earth... by Corbin Harney (2009)

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The Way It Is: One Water...One Air...One Mother Earth... by Corbin Harney (2009)

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The Way It is: One Water…One Air…One Mother Earth…

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As I see it all around me, the trees are dying out, our water is contaminated, and our air is not good to breathe. Those are the reasons why today I’m trying my best to come back to our ways of thousands of years ago.We have to come back to the Native way of life.

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Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA)

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Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA)

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The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act ("the Act" or "RECA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2210 note, established an administrative program for claims relating to atmospheric nuclear testing and uranium industry employment. The Act delegated authority to the Attorney General to establish procedures and make determinations regarding whether claims satisfy statutory eligibility criteria.

This page provides a partial summary of the requirements for compensation under RECA. Please refer to the Act and to the Department's implementing regulations at 28 C.F.R. Part 79 for more information. Claim forms may be downloaded using links at the bottom of this page. You may also request a claim form be mailed to you by contacting the RECA Program at civil.reca@usdoj.gov or calling 1-800-729-7327.
On June 7, 2022, the President signed into law the RECA Extension Act of 2022. This law extends the termination of the RECA Trust Fund and the filing deadline for all claims for two years from its date of enactment.
The Program has revised its filing procedures consistent with the extended statutory deadline. Claims that bear a date of June 10, 2024, on the postmark or stamp by another commercial carrier shall be deemed timely filed upon receipt by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program. The Department will return untimely claims and will not accept electronic submissions. For more information, please see the Department's Notification of Procedures for Claims Submitted at the Revised Statutory Filing Deadline.

Program Summary

The United States conducted nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons development tests from 1945 to 1962. Essential to the nation's nuclear weapons development was uranium mining and processing, which was carried out by tens of thousands of workers.

Following the conclusion of these activities, lawsuits against the United States alleged failure to warn of exposures to known radiation hazards. These suits were dismissed by the appellate courts. Congress responded by devising a program allowing partial restitution to individuals who developed serious illnesses after presumed exposure to radiation released during the atmospheric nuclear tests or after employment in the uranium industry. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed on October 5, 1990. The Act's scope of coverage was broadened on July 10, 2000.

This unique statute was designed to serve as an expeditious, low-cost alternative to litigation. Significantly, RECA does not require claimants to establish causation. Rather, claimants qualify for compensation by establishing the diagnosis of a listed compensable disease after working or residing in a designated location for a specific period of time.
RECA Covered Areas
RECA establishes lump sum compensation awards for individuals who contracted specified diseases in three defined populations:

Uranium Miners, Millers, and Ore Transporters may be eligible for one-time, lump sum compensation of $100,000.

"Onsite Participants" at atmospheric nuclear weapons tests may be eligible for one-time, lump sum compensation of up to $75,000.

Individuals who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site ("Downwinders") may be eligible for one-time, lump sum compensation of $50,000.

The Act defines specific eligibility criteria within these three broad areas of application:

Uranium Worker States: The Act covers certain uranium industry employment in the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, and Texas.

The dates of coverage are from January 1, 1942, through December 31, 1971. The Act requires the employee to have worked in a covered uranium mine for at least one year, or have been exposed to 40 or more working level months of radiation while employed in a uranium mine, during this covered period. Alternatively, an employee may have worked in a covered uranium mill, or in the transport of uranium or vanadium-uranium ore from a mine or mill, for at least one year during the covered period. To be eligible for compensation, a claimant must establish both uranium industry employment that meets these statutory requirements and a subsequent diagnosis of a specified compensable disease.

Congress set forth the following compensable diseases for uranium workers, listed in the chart below:

Compensable diseases for Uranium Miners, Uranium Millers, and Ore Transporters
Uranium Miners
Lung cancer

Fibrosis of the lung

Pulmonary fibrosis

Silicosis

Pneumoconiosis

Cor pulmonale related to fibrosis of the lung

Uranium Millers & Ore Transporters
Lung cancer

Fibrosis of the lung

Pulmonary fibrosis

Silicosis

Pneumoconiosis

Cor pulmonale related to fibrosis of the lung

Renal cancer

Chronic renal disease

Onsite Participants: The Act covers the participation onsite in a test involving the atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device. "Onsite" means duty above or within the Pacific Test Sites, the Nevada Test Site, the South Atlantic Test Site, the Trinity Test Site, any designated location within a naval shipyard, air force base, or other official government installation where ships, aircraft or other equipment used in an atmospheric nuclear detonation were decontaminated; or any designated location used for the purpose of monitoring fallout from an atmospheric nuclear test conducted at the Nevada Test Site. "Atmospheric detonations of nuclear devices" means only those tests conducted by the United States prior to January 1, 1963, and does not include the wartime detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. A claimant must establish both participation onsite in a test involving the atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device and a subsequent diagnosis of a specified compensable disease.

Downwinder Areas: The Act covers physical presence in certain counties located downwind from the Nevada Test Site in the states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. In the State of Utah, the covered counties include Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington, and Wayne. In the State of Nevada, the counties include Eureka, Lander, Lincoln, Nye, White Pine, and that portion of Clark County that consists of townships 13 through 16 at ranges 63 through 71. In the State of Arizona, the counties include Apache, Coconino, Gila, Navajo, Yavapai, and that part of Arizona that is north of the Grand Canyon.

A claimant must establish physical presence in the Downwinder area for at least two years during the period beginning on January 21, 1951, and ending on October 31, 1958, or for the entire period beginning on June 30, 1962, and ending on July 31, 1962. An eligible claimant must also establish a subsequent diagnosis of a specified compensable disease.

Congress set forth the following compensable diseases for Onsite Participants and Downwinders, listed in the table below. A compensable cancer must be primary to the organ listed and satisfy statutory requirements for onset:

Compensable Diseases for Onsite Participants and Downwinders

Leukemia (but not chronic lymphocytic leukemia)

Multiple myeloma

Lymphomas (other than Hodgkin's disease)

Thyroid

Male or female breast

Esophagus

Stomach

Gall bladder

Salivary gland

Urinary bladder

Brain

Colon

Ovary

Liver (except if cirrhosis or hepatitis B is indicated)

Lung

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Program
The U.S. Attorney General established the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program within the Constitutional and Specialized Tort Litigation Section in April 1992. The Department of Justice promulgated regulations designed to use existing records so that claims can be resolved in a reliable, objective, and non-adversarial manner, quickly and with little administrative cost to the person filing the claim or the United States.

Although residents of the Four Corners Region (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona) have filed the majority of RECA claims, the program has awarded compensation to individuals residing in each state, as well as several foreign countries. The claimant population includes many Native American tribes. The Program has visited more than a dozen reservations to meet with tribal leaders and assist tribe members filing RECA claims.

Inter-Agency Radiation Network
Today, the RECA Program is part of a broad inter-agency network that comprises the comprehensive federal radiation compensation system.

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act ("EEOICPA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 7384 et seq. (2012), pays an additional $50,000 to certain individuals who were approved for compensation under the uranium worker provisions of RECA, as well as impairment and wage loss benefits. For more information, please review the Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs EEOICPA website.

The National Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program ("RESEP"), provides grants to rural health clinics located in Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. RESEP clinics provide medical screening for compensable diseases under RECA at no cost to the individual. RESEP clinics may also offer referral services, diagnostic tests, educational materials about preventive health measures, and assistance with RECA and EEOICPA claims. For more information, please review the National Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program website.

The Nuclear Test Personnel Review ("NTPR") program is a Department of Defense office that works to confirm veteran participation in U.S. nuclear tests. More information, including historical reports on U.S. nuclear tests, is available on the Nuclear Test Personnel Review website.

Finally, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA") administers the largest system of benefits for veterans of any nation in the world. More information regarding VA benefits related to radiation exposure is available on the VA radiation exposures website.

RECA Updates

Policy Guidance Regarding the Combination of Periods of Employment for Miners, Millers, and Ore Transporters.
It is the Department's practice to permit claimants to combine periods of employment as miners, millers, and ore transporters to meet the statutory one-year duration of employment requirement. For all three categories of uranium workers (mining, milling, and ore transporting), the Act specifies six common diseases: primary cancer of the lung, fibrosis of the lung, pulmonary fibrosis, cor pulmonale related to fibrosis of the lung, silicosis, and pneumoconiosis. Therefore, in cases involving these six illnesses, the Act's exposure criteria can be satisfied by combining periods of employment that include mining, milling, and ore transporting. For millers and ore transporters (but not miners), the Act specifies two additional compensable diseases: primary renal cancer and chronic renal disease including nephritis and kidney tubal tissue injury. In cases involving these two illnesses, the Act's exposure criteria can be satisfied by combining periods of employment that include only milling and ore transporting. See 73 Fed. Reg. 63196 for more information.
Contact RECA by e-mail Civil.RECA@usdoj.gov

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The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act ("the Act" or "RECA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2210 note, established an administrative program for claims relating to atmospheric nuclear testing and uranium industry employment. The Act delegated authority to the Attorney General to establish procedures and make determinations regarding whether claims satisfy statutory eligibility criteria.

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Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy by Philip Fradkin  (2004)

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Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy by Philip Fradkin  (2004)

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Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy. By Philip L. Fradkin. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. 301p. $24.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core

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Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy. By Philip L. Fradkin. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. 301p. 14.95 paper. - Volume 84 Issue 2

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Petition from the Marshallese People Concerning the Pacific Islands (April 20, 1954)

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Petition from the Marshallese People Concerning the Pacific Islands (April 20, 1954)

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Petition from Marshallese people concerning the Pacific Islands

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Video Poems by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner a Marshallese artist who speaks of the injustices and harm of environmental racism, nuclear weapons, and climate change around the world. Zinn Education Project

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Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a poet, educator, and activist from the Marshall Islands. Her art and outreach bring international attention to environmental racism, the harm caused by nuclear weapons, and climate change. The Zinn Education Project features her work in the lessons Teaching to the Heart: Poetry, Climate Change, and Sacred Spaces and Meet Today's Climate Justice Activists: A Mixer on the People Saving the World.

See the short films below and visit her website to learn more.

"Tell Them"

"Rise" Featuring Aka Niviâna

"History Project"

"Dear Matafele Peinem"

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Video Poems by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner - Zinn Education Project

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Film clip. Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. Various years. Video poems by a Marshallese artist show the injustices and harm of environmental racism, nuclear weapons, and climate change around the world.

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Status of countries regarding the Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (2023)

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Status of countries regarding the Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (2023)

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Country position on the Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

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An interactive visualization from Our World in Data.

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'Exposed' Play Gives Voices to Those Downwind of U.S. A-Bomb Tests (2007)

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'Exposed' Play Gives Voices to Those Downwind of U.S. A-Bomb Tests (2007)

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Deadly nuclear fallout from atomic tests on U.S. soil is the subject of Mary Dickson's docudrama, News Exposed, Premiering in Utah, Gives Voice to Those Downwind of U.S. A-Bomb Tests Exposed, getting its world premiere Oct. 19 in Salt Lake City, UT. The run is nearly sold out.

According to Plan-B Theatre Company, the resident Equity troupe known for its provocative and socially relevant plays, " Exposed combines oral history, personal experience and powerful documentation to show the human toll of four decades of nuclear testing."

The work is "based on declassified government documents, including portions of Atomic Energy Commission minutes, as well as public testimony, interviews, conversations and, more importantly, personal memoir that puts a much needed human face on a painful chapter of history."

The cast features Joyce Cohen, Teri Cowan, Teresa Sanderson, Kirt Bateman, Mark Fossen and Jason Tatom. Plan-B artistic director Jerry Rapier directs.

According to production notes, "The U.S. government exploded 928 nuclear bombs - most of them far more powerful than those that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki - on American soil. From 1951 to 1962, the government dropped more than 100 nuclear bombs on the desert of Nevada. When atmospheric testing was banned in 1962, tests continued to be conducted underground until 1992. More than half of the 828 underground tests leaked radiation into the atmosphere."

Utah playwright Mary Dickson is "a Downwinder with a compelling personal story to share, a journalist who has spent years chronicling the effects of testing, and an educator who has worked to increase public awareness on these issues." Exposed grew out of a book-length manuscript she wrote during a writing residency at the Mesa Refuge.

Artistic director Rapier told Playbill.com, "As we open Exposed, we've already met our box office goal and the run is nearly sold out. This is our third consecutive season opening with a new work by a Utah writer - bodes well for new work in our community."

Exposed will play to Nov. 4 at the Studio Theatre, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Plan-B's home in Salt Lake City. Post-show discussions will be held Oct. 21 and Nov. 3.

The production team includes Jacquelin Cintura Bryce (costumes), Cheryl Ann Cluff (sound and projections), Jennifer Freed (stage manager), Randy Rasmussen (set), Jesse Portillo (lighting), Cory Thorell (props) and Ross Thorell (crew).

Tickets are $18. For information visit www.planbtheatre.org.

*

Since 1991, Plan-B "has provided unique theatrical experiences for both audience and artist by producing theatre that is socially and politically conscious; explores cultural heritage and diversity; presents well-known texts in new ways; and/or fosters the creation of new work," according to the troupe.

Plan-B brought the family drama, Facing East, about a Mormon family grieving over a gay son, to Off-Broadway and San Francisco earlier in 2007, following a run in Salt Lake City.

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Exposed, Premiering in Utah, Gives Voice to Those Downwind of U.S. A-Bomb Tests

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Deadly nuclear fallout from atomic tests on U.S. soil is the subject of Mary Dickson's docudrama, Exposed , getting its world premiere Oct. 19 in Salt Lake City, UT. The run is nearly sold out.

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"Target Nevada" from USAF Lookout Mountain Laboratory (1951)

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"Target Nevada" from USAF Lookout Mountain Laboratory (1951)

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Atoms for Peace Speech - Eisenhower (1953)

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Atoms for Peace Speech - Eisenhower (1953)

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Atoms For Peace Speech - Eisenhower 1953

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"Phantom Zero" installation by Nakahashi Katsushige: Part 2 of 5 at Smith College (2012)

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"Phantom Zero" installation by Nakahashi Katsushige: Part 2 of 5 at Smith College (2012)

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"Phantom Zero" Installation by Artist Nakahashi Katsushige: Part 2 of 5

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Gardens: Expose yourself to atomic gardening 

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Gardens: Expose yourself to atomic gardening 

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No horticultural buzzword sums up the current mood of UK gardening more neatly than "heritage". Whether it's the reproduction vintage tools at garden centre checkouts or the faux meadow planting gracing the show gardens, to many of us the perfect garden appears to be one designed and built 150 years ago. But this fixation with nostalgia in gardening is a relatively new construct. Back in the mid-20th century, a space-age form of breeding captured the imagination of the public by harnessing the power of the atom to create a new generation of weird and wonderful never-seen-before plants, many of which we still grow today.

The "atomic gardening" movement exposed wide ranges of plants and seeds to radioactive substances for short periods, as a fast and efficient way to induce mutations. Using methods as diverse as strapping packets of seed to the insides of x-ray machines at local hospitals, and even siting them within the fallout zone of nuclear weapons testing sites, scientists were able to generate thousands of new genetic combinations.

Although the experiments are mostly forgotten today, many crops and ornamental plant varieties still in common use descend from these tests that hoped to advance humanity by using "atoms for peace". These include the bright red 'Star Ruby' grapefruit that comes with enhanced levels of the nutrient lycopene, 'Todd's Mitcham' peppermint, which accounts for most of the world's production of menthol and mint oil, and probably almost every "supersweet" sweetcorn variety you have ever eaten.

Ornamentals also attracted the mutation breeder's eye, with the practice widely used to create new orchid, pelargonium, rose, canna, streptocarpus and carnation varieties.

Compared to the surgical precision of modern gene editing, these efforts were like using a sledgehammer, creating potentially hundreds of unpredictable mutations with unknown effects. Yet they were enthusiastically adopted by the gardening public. Marketing as "atomically energised" and even "atom-blasted", seed catalogues featured images of white-coated scientists alongside these new varieties. In the US the seeds were widely grown by school science clubs and in the UK there was even an Atomic Gardening Society founded in 1958, that encouraged the amateur to get involved.

Want to try your hand at growing "atomically energised" plant varieties? Here are a few examples: Tulip 'Faraday' (1949); Cherry 'Compact Lambert' (1964); Dahlia 'Ornamental Rays' (1966); Snapdragon 'Madame Butterfly' (1968); and Streptocarpus 'Margaret' (1974).
Email James at james.wong@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @Botanygeek Topics

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Gardens: expose yourself to atomic gardening | James Wong

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No horticultural buzzword sums up the current mood of UK gardening more neatly than "heritage". Whether it's the reproduction vintage tools at garden centre checkouts or the faux meadow planting gracing the show gardens, to many of us the perfect garden appears to be one designed and built 150 years ago.

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"Artists to Serve Radioactive Soup at Frieze London" (2014)

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"Artists to Serve Radioactive Soup at Frieze London" (2014)

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Artists to Serve Radioactive Soup at Frieze London | Artnet News

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Two Japanese artists are offering visitors to this year’s Frieze Art Fair in London the chance to try a soup made from vegetables grown in Fukushima.

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TED Talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

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TED Talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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October 6, 2015 - February 21, 2016, Getty Center

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Amanda Maddox, assistant curator of photographs, the J. Paul Getty Museum, leads a tour of the exhibitions Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows and The Younger Generation: Contemporary Japanese Photography. Meet under the stairs in the Entrance Hall.
Thursday, October 22 and November 19, 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday, December 22, 2:30 p.m.
Getty Center: Museum galleries

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Amanda Maddox, assistant curator of photographs, the J. Paul Getty Museum, leads a tour of the exhibitions Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows and The Younger Generation: Contemporary Japanese Photography. Meet under the stairs in the Entrance Hall. Thursday, October 22 and November 19, 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 22, 2:30 p.m.

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70th Anniversary of Atoms for Peace Speech

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70th Anniversary of Atoms for Peace Speech

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From International Atomic Energy Agency ( Sept 2023)

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This year marks the 70th anniversary of US President Dwight D Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The speech inspired the creation of the IAEA, an organization founded in 1957 to promote the application of nuclear science and technology for peace and development around the world. This short film was shown at a commemorative event held this week to mark the anniversary.

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70th Anniversary of Atoms for Peace Speech film

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A Japanese language, animated documentary film that follows three surviving crew members from Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5). On March 1st, 1954, the Lucky Dragon, a Japanese tuna fishing vessel, witnessed the detonation of Castle Bravo, an early American hydrogen bomb test.

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Day of the Western Sunrise - Educational Modules

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Day of the Western Sunrise - Educational Modules

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Day of the Western Sunrise_Educational Modules

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'Horrific catastrophe': What would happen to Seattle in a nuclear attack? (2019)

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'Horrific catastrophe': What would happen to Seattle in a nuclear attack? (2019)

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'Horrific catastrophe': What would happen to Seattle in a nuclear attack?

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SEATTLE - Although the Cold War is long over and the possibility of a nuclear attack presumably out of reach, scientists can’t help but wonder “What if? ” “It goes without saying that a nuclear attack on a city such as Seattle would be a horrific catastrophe,” said Hans M.

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'Russia expert tells us if Colorado is still the nuclear target it was during the Cold War' (2022)

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'Russia expert tells us if Colorado is still the nuclear target it was during the Cold War' (2022)

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Russia expert tells us if Colorado is still the nuclear target it was during the Cold War

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原爆の図 丸木美術館 | Maruki Gallery For The Hiroshima Panels

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We lost our uncle to the atomic bomb. Two young nieces were killed. Our younger sister suffered burns, and our father died after six months. Many friends and acquaintances perished. Iri left for Hiroshima on the first train from Tokyo, three days after the bomb was dropped. Toshi followed a few days later. Just over two kilometers from the center of the explosion, the family home was still standing.

But the roof and roof tiles and windows were blown away by the blast, along with pans, bowls, and chopsticks from the kitchen. Even so, the burned structure remained, and large numbers of injured people had gathered there and lay on the floor from wall to wall. We carried the injured, cremated the dead, searched for food, and found scorched sheets of tin to patch the roof. With the stench of death and flies and maggots all around us, we wandered about just as those who had experienced the bomb.

In the beginning of September, we returned Tokyo, and we learned for certain that the war had ended. In Hiroshima, we had lost the strength to think about whether the war had ended or not. Three years passed before we began to paint the Hiroshima Panels. We stripped our clothing to recall images from that time and draw them, and others agreed to pose for us because we were painting the atomic bomb. We began thinking how a 17-year-old girl had a life span of 17 years, how the life of a 3-year-old child had lasted three years.

We painted some nine hundred human figures, including the sketches, for the first painting. We thought we had painted a large number, but as many as 140,000 people died in Hiroshima. As we continued painting, praying for the souls of the dead in the hope that it will never happen again, we realized that even if we painted all our lives, we could never paint them all. One atomic bomb in one instant caused the deaths of more people than we could ever portray. Longlasting radioactivity and radiation sickness are causing people to suffer and die even now. This was not a natural disaster. As we painted, through our paintings, these thoughts ran through our minds.

Maruki Iri
Maruki Toshi

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The Hiroshima Panels | Maruki Gallery For The Hiroshima Panels

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We lost our uncle to the atomic bomb. Two young nieces were killed. Our younger sister suffered burns, and our father died after six months. Many friends and acquaintances perished. Iri left for Hiroshima on the first train from Tokyo, three days after the bomb was dropped. Toshi followed a few days later.

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Today (29th August) is the International Day against Nuclear Tests, and at Crab Museum we are proud to stand against nuclear weapons in all their forms - but what has this got to do with Spongebob?

Bikini Bottom is home to one of the world's greatest cartoon characters, Spongebob Squarepants. It is also home to Mr Krabs, a miserly business owner of almost equal fame.

However the fictional location of Bikini Bottom is based on a very real place, the seabed surrounding Bikini Atoll, and site of American nuclear weapons testing.

Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. government detonated 67 nuclear weapons on these islands. Some of these weapons were detonated underwater, which perhaps explains the weirdness of Bikini Bottom's residents. The fact that they can talk is a dead giveaway.

Sandy Cheeks, the Texan Chipmunk is a good example of the show's nods to the testing at Bikini Atoll. Chipmunks were carried onboard naval vessels to see the effects of radiation and blast.

The original human population of these islands have not been able to return as radiation levels are far too high and the ground is irreversibly contaminated. Their descendants have settled on other islands or in the United States and they have never been able to return to their homeland.

Surprisingly a 2017 study by Steve Palumbi found that marine life in the nuclear crater is abundant. It has been suggested that this is because the original populations have all died off, and the marine life is able to move in and out of the contaminated zone. On the face of it these animals appear to be healthy however scientists have noted potential mutations with the Nurse Shark, which usually sports two dorsal fins, being seen with only one.

Since nuclear weapons testing began on 16 July 1945 nearly 2,000 have taken place around the world. They have been conducted on land, underground, at sea and on humans as well as countless other animals. Nuclear testing is the prime example of political, technological power being violently flaunted at the expense of the planet.

The only good thing to come of them is Spongebob, so join us today to say no to nuclear testing, rearming, recommissioning and posturing.

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Spongebob and Nuclear Testing - Crab Museum

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Lauren Iida - Nuclear Sculpture from Blades of Change

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Lauren Iida - Nuclear Sculpture from Blades of Change

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Setsuko Thurlow - Nobel Lecture Highlights

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When someone that has survived a nuclear bomb gets to deliver the Nobel Peace Prize lecture, this is the message she wants the world to hear.

Help Setsuko Thurlow and ICAN finish the job - go to https://rise.icanw.org and pledge to support the survivors and the campaign that will ban and eliminate nuclear weapons for good

Video: Ari Beser's Goss Grove Films 

For the full Nobel ceremony: 
https://youtu.be/P1daV8n6fTY?t=4282

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What is Nuclear Justice? from Asia-Pacific Leadership Network

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What is Nuclear Justice? from Asia-Pacific Leadership Network

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[Infographic] What is Nuclear Justice?

VOICES FROM PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

An infographic highlighting the nuclear tests conducted by the United States, France, and the UK in the Pacific from 1946 to 1996.

VOICES FROM PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

An infographic highlighting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) signature and ratification status among countries in the Pacific (as of September 2023).

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[Infographic] What is Nuclear Justice? | Asia-Pacific Leadership Network

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Infographic] What is Nuclear Justice? VOICES FROM PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES An infographic highlighting the nuclear tests conducted by the United States, France, and the UK in the Pacific from 1946 to 1996. VOICES FROM PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES An infographic highlighting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) signature and ratification status among countries in the Pacific (as of September 2023).

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News links to struggles in many countries.

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Seeking Justice: Compensation for Nuclear Victims/Survivors around the World

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Seeking Justice: Compensation for Nuclear Victims/Survivors around the World

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Investigation of Compensation Measures for Nuclear Victims/Survivors around the World: in Light of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

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Healing Hate: A Community Event Mourning the Theft of Seattle's Sadako Peace Statue

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Healing Hate: A Community Event Mourning the Theft of Seattle's Sadako Peace Statue

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Healing Hate: A Community Event Mourning the Theft of Seattle’s Sadako Peace Statue

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by Soumya Gupta For decades, the statue of Sadako Sasaki, also known as "Sadako and the Thousand Cranes," in Seattle’s Peace Park has been a moving tr

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"Infamous Fukushima town sign praising nuclear energy to become permanent museum display" The Mainichi (2021)

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"Infamous Fukushima town sign praising nuclear energy to become permanent museum display" The Mainichi (2021)

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Infamous Fukushima town sign praising nuclear energy to become permanent museum display - The Mainichi

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FUKUSHIMA -- A sign hailing nuclear energy and formerly located on the main street of Fukushima Prefecture town Futaba, which was rendered inaccessibl

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Fukushima town lifts evacuation order (2022)

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Fukushima town lifts evacuation order (2022)

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Fukushima town lifts evacuation order, allowing former residents to return 11 years after nuclear disaster | CNN

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More than a decade after Japan’s worst nuclear disaster, the town that hosts the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant finally lifted its evacuation order on Tuesday, allowing former residents to come home.

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History of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

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History of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

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History of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum