SHIZUOKA (Kyodo) The government has paid survivor benefits under the national insurance program for seamen to relatives of four fishermen who died in the decades after being irradiated in a 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, a local insurance office said.
All four died of liver diseases, including cancer, during their 50s to 70s, after they were infected with hepatitis C from blood transfusions to treat their radiation-linked diseases, the Social Insurance Agency's Shizuoka branch said.
They are among the 23 crew members of the Fukuryu Maru No. 5 from the port of Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture. The boat was exposed to radiation when the United States tested a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific atoll. Twelve of the 23 seamen have died.