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ZALLTIMORE,
MARYLAND
SUN
MAY 28 1976
ue - 178,205
E - 181,837
S - 340,098
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22 years after Bikini nuclear blast
oe
Islandersstill treated for radiation
Started to itch and form blisawcae tO a clap of thunder ters and one man went blind
ang saw “a dig ball of red in beeause he let the snow fall on
the western sky.” she and his eyes, hoping it would cure
three of her children have had his cataracts.”
their thyroids removed beSince the explosion, which
cause of radiation damage, Was code-named “Bravo,”
more than 35 per cent of the
people who were on Rongelap
have developed radiation-induced “thyroid lesions,” some
of which have developed into
cancer. Nineteen, like Mrs.
Boas and her children, have
had their thyroids removed.
The thyroid cancers were
discovered eight years ago
when two Rongelap youths
suddenly stopped growing, a
phenomenon eventually attributed to a radiation-induced thyroid problem.
Later, an 18-year-old boy
who had been a fetus at the
time of the explosion died of
leukemia. More recently, doctors have discovered an increase in strange kidney disorders. Now they are concerned about the unusual
bumps on Mrs. Boas’s head.
In addition, an official of
the U.S. Energy Research and
Development Administration
said, “an undetermined number of others have died due to
[medical reasons aggravated
dergoing tests on suspicious
bumps that have begun to ap-
warned people not to eat coco-
pear on her head.
One of the Japanese fishermen died in Tokyo of radia-
| tion sickness six months after
‘hirg soyage to American rer arch hospitals, was one of
i} ergy Research and Develop1 ment Admir ‘tration, which
them its safe to go home,”
about 240 islanders, 28 American servicemen and 23 Japa-
Fourth in a series
By MATTHEW J. SEIDEN
Sun Staff Correspondent
Kwajalein Atoll. the Marshai
Islands— Twenty-two
years ago, the United States
set
off.
on
Bikini
Atoll
here in the mid-Pacific, the
largest thermonuclear biastit
has ever exploded~a 17-megaton device nearly a thou-
sand times more powerful
than the bomb which leveled
Hiroshima in August, 1945.
At the time of the Bikini
explosion, Elien Boas was a
23-year-old mother of five,
hying peacefully on the re-
mete island of Rongelap, less
than 100 miles east of Bikini,
and more than 4.000 miles
{rom the US. West Coast.
Since that memorable day
is March 1954. when she
nese fishermen
to ra-
diation from the Bikini Atoll
test biast.
Despite the nearness of
Mrs. Boas’s native island to
Bikini, Rongelap’s 86 residents were neither warned of
the explosion nor offered pasSage to a more distantisland.
US. officials said the radiation exposure was caused by a
sudden shift in wind which
biew the deadly fallout in an
direction.
“After the thunder, the big
red ball lasted for half an
hoor, and then the white snow
began to fall and it lasted for
12 hours,” said Mrs. Boas,
who now has 13 children and 5
and now Mrs. Boas is un-
by the radioactive fallout.”
has been conducting periodic
tests of the Marshallese raaiation victims, has not checked
up on the 28 American vic-
tims since initial tests made
in 1954.
Meanwhile, the former res- idents of Bikini, who were tola |
by U.S. officials at the time of :
the test that they could return
to their island within a year or |
two, now are suing the U.S.
for a $1.5 million aeriai. ra-
diological survey to determine if the island is safe for
resettlement.
The Energy Research ara
Development Administra::on,
which used to be known as the
Atomic iunergy Commission,
says thal Bikini “is safe to
live on” except for the mud in
the surrounding waters which
is still “quite radioactive and
highly dangerous.”
The food chain, however,is
“not seriously affected” in BiKini, according 10 the Energy
Research and Development
Administrat:on. On other islands, the administration has
nuts, crabs, breadfruit and
other staples of the Pacific 1s4 the explosion. The fate of the land diet.
“My clients don't trust the
other Japanese is unknown
here, and remarkably, the En- official U.S. scienusts whotell
Mrs. Boas, who spent the
Togot at the US mussile range
nere recently as she began her
See BOMB, AZ, Zol. 6
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