Idyllic 'Bikini Island' was turned into ‘radioactive hellscape’ with 'mutated' legacy

A once beautiful stretch of coral reef in Oceania was turned into a “radioactive hellscape” after being used as a nuclear testing site for the US.

From March 1 to April 22 1954, six thermonuclear bombs were detonated by the US military in the ‘Bikini Island’, a stretch of coral reef in the Marshall Islands. The bombs tore through the peaceful surroundings, destroying the majority of natural life and leaving a horrific legacy of mutation that would last decades.

This was the worst of a 12-year period from 1946 to 1958, where the idyllic coastline was battered by wave after wave of nuclear explosions, courtesy of the US.

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In 1946, America had persuaded all 167 people who lived on Bikini Island to relocate before they began testing nuclear weapons. But what followed was a string of tragic events and a situation where to this day, Bikini islanders have not been able to return to their homeland because of nuclear contamination.

Following the Second World War, the US government chose the island as a nuclear weapon testing site while urging the atoll’s residents that if they moved they’d be of great importance to humankind.

While the military began detonating the start of what would be 23 nuclear weapons in the coral reef, the displaced Bikini inhabitants moved to a different island. However, it turned out to have inadequate resources to support the population who began experiencing starvation by early 1948.

Over time it became clear that the nuclear weapons were much more dangerous and toxic than anything ever imagined. Today, there are still masses of debris lying on the coral’s ocean floor that still have live nuclear ammunition. Crew members who oversaw the testing were reported to have serious health issues caused by the radioactive waste that would last the rest of their lives.

One of the Bikini islanders saw the explosions from a nearby island. “When we saw the explosion, at first we thought ‘why is the sun rising in the West?’ Then we heard the bang,” the unnamed islander said on a documentary called The Forgotten Nuclear War - Bombs on Bikini Atoll.

The woman, who was aged six when she saw the bomb go off, said she felt “the world shudder.” In the documentary, Bikini Island is described now as a “radioactive hellscape.”

In 1970, some 200 residents were returned back to their home on Bikini Island by the US government. However, eight years later scientists found dangerously high levels of the radioactive substance strontium-90 in the well water on the atoll. Further testing revealed some of the resident’s bodies to be carrying abnormally high levels of the equally toxic caesium-137.

The radioactive residue left Bikini uninhabitable for this day, and has seen the land’s people in a constant state of exile over the years. Although two trust funds in the 1980s were established to help pay for the Bikinians’ health care and living costs, the cost to human quality remains dear.