[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION, GLOBAL: "70 Years Ago: A-Bombs Tested on Ships at Bikini Atoll"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

70 Years Ago: A-Bombs Tested on Ships at Bikini Atoll

Maritime Executive
July 26, 2016

To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the first Bikini Atoll nuclear tests, the nonprofit National Security Archive has published declassified footage of the Able and Baker "shots" in the summer of 1946. 

The tests were intended to determine the effect of nuclear blasts on Navy vessels - and the results came as a surprise. The relatively small explosions (by nuclear standards) sank 15 out of 95 ships deployed, severely damaged many of the rest, and so thoroughly contaminated others with radioactive fallout that they had to be scuttled rather than scrapped. The tests are credited with bringing the problem of contamination from nuclear weapons to widespread public attention for the first time. 

The first test, Able, was an air burst conducted well above ground level to keep local fallout to a minimum. It sank two transports, a cruiser and two destroyer, and the shock wave badly damaged 14 other vessels. Even vessels which were far enough away to survive the blast without damage would have suffered loss of life from the initial burst of radiation if they had been manned – but next test revealed an entirely different and more frightening possibility. 

…

For the entire article and the video, see
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/video-bikini-atoll-70-years-later

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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