Operation Crossroads - Bikini After Crossroads

Bikini After Crossroads

The 167 Bikini residents who were moved to the uninhabited Rongerik Atoll prior to Crossroads proved unable to feed themselves in their new environment. Visitors to Rongerik reported the islanders were facing potential starvation by January 1947, suffering malnutrition by July, and were emaciated by January 1948. In March 1948 they were evacuated to Kwajalein Atoll, and then settled onto another uninhabited island, Kili, in November. With only one third of a square mile, Kili has one tenth the land area of Bikini and, more important, has no lagoon and no protected harbor. Unable to practice their native culture of lagoon fishing, they have been dependent on food shipments ever since. Their four thousand descendents today are living on several islands and in foreign countries.

Their desire to return to Bikini was thwarted indefinitely by the U.S. decision to resume nuclear testing at Bikini in 1954. During 1954, 1956, and 1958, twenty-one more nuclear bombs were detonated at Bikini, yielding a total of 75 megatons, equivalent to more than three thousand Baker bombs. Only one was an air burst, the 3.8 megaton Redwing Cherokee test. Air bursts distribute fallout in a large area as it distributes through strong stratospheric currents. The rest were surface bursts producing intense local fallout. The first after Crossroads was the dirtiest: the 15 megaton Bravo shot of Operation Castle on March 1, 1954, the largest-ever U.S. test. Fallout from Bravo caused radiation injury to Bikini islanders who were living on Rongelap Atoll at the time.

The brief attempt to resettle Bikini from 1974 until 1978 was aborted when health problems from radioactivity in the food supply caused the atoll to be evacuated again. Sport divers who visit Bikini to dive on the shipwrecks must eat imported food. The local government elected to close the lagoon to sport divers in 2008, but reopened for one season in 2011. A combination of high fuel prices and an unreliable airline service was the stated reason for its closure.