The Marshall Islands have marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. hydrogen bomb test in the Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. That test bomb was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It completely destroyed one island and exposed thousands in the area, including Japanese workers on the fishing boat Fukuryu Maru No. 5, to deadly radiation. Hundreds of other fishing boats are believed to have been exposed to fallout from that bomb test.
The day deserves greater recognition as a day of nuclear disaster, as do many other days. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests at Bikini and in the Marshall Islands.
Those atmospheric tests, most of which were larger than the Hiroshima atomic bombing, produced mushroom clouds and huge amounts of nuclear fallout. The Marshall Islands were contaminated so badly that many areas became unlivable.