Parts of the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific, where the United States conducted nuclear tests during the Cold War, have higher radiation levels than Chernobyl and Fukushima.
The massive Runit Dome, on Runit Island, is where the U.S. entombed radioactive waste four decades ago from nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.
Researchers found concentrations of plutonium-238 on Naen, raising the possibility that the island was used as an unreported dumping ground. Plutonium-238 is a radioisotope associated with nuclear waste and not generally with fallout, said Ivana Nikolic Hughes, a co-author of the research and an associate professor of chemistry at Columbia.
“We are concerned about what is being consumed on Naen and at what level,” said James Matayoshi, the mayor of Rongelap Atoll. He said he didn’t like the idea of people collecting food from Naen and the islands near it, because he doesn’t know what kind of risk that poses for his constituents’ health.Terry Hamilton, the U.S.
The 67 nuclear bombs the United States detonated between 1946 and 1958 left widespread contamination on the Marshall Islands, a set of 29 atolls halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Although the United States conducted only 6% of its nuclear-bomb testing here, the detonations and mushroom clouds generated more than half of the total energy yield from all U.S. testing.
The fallout, which some islanders mistook for snow, caused skin burns, hair loss, nausea and, eventually, cancer in many of the people exposed.
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