layer of the stuff making Rongelap look as though it had been the scene of a freakish szowfall in the middle of the Pacific, only 600 miles north of the equator. Villagers scuffed up the powder as they walked, and some tried to brush it off their hair and bodies. ‘Children, delighted with the “unexpected event, played with the snow. Several people, like the ~ Japanese fishermen, tried trsting the powder to determine just what it was. Sometime in the early morning the Rongelapese spotted a plane or planes buzzing by the island. Someone conjectured that the snow they iiad seen had been dropped by the planes and that perhaps its purpose was to kill mosquitoes. Kastward, on Utirik, explosion. the snowfall began 22 hours after the It was lighter and described as "mistlike". That evening, as the sun set and darkness fell over Rongelap, fallout ceased. ‘She powder now nad reached a depti of about one and one half inches and at night gave the island an eerie aspect. ino th: afternoon the it rained, Sometime earlier The raindrops spattered the white powder, and as it increased, rivulets of water carried the radioactive ash from leaves to the yround, and from rooftops into water catchment tanks. The fallout. of Bikini's pulverized and irradiated coral reef had ended--but its long lasting effects had just begun to work. iit 34 to il + 78 thirty-four hours after the bomb Cit34) safely aboard ship. That same day, according to reports from the 82 Cm the 28 Americans were gg 3553